Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Marketing

This chapter illustrates the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics in marketing and will help managers develop a deeper understanding of its potential to revolutionize the service experience. We summarize the use of AI and robots in practice and show that the adoption of AI predominantly occurs at the task level rather than the job level, implying that AI takes over some tasks that are part of a job and not the entire job. Based on these insights, we discuss opportunities and drawbacks of AI and robots and reflect on whether service robots will complement or substitute human employees. Moreover, we explain why many consumers are still reluctant to engage with these new technologies and which conditions should be met in order to benefit from using service robots

Game-inspired Pedagogical Conversational Agents: A Systematic Literature Review

Pedagogical conversational agents (PCAs) are an innovative way to help learners improve their academic performance via intelligent dialog systems. However, PCAs have not yet reached their full potential. They often fail because users perceive conversations with them as not engaging. Enriching them with game-based approaches could contribute to mitigating this issue. One could enrich a PCA with game-based approaches by gamifying it to foster positive effects, such as fun and motivation, or by integrating it into a game-based learning (GBL) environment to promote effects such as social presence and enable individual learning support. We summarize PCAs that are combined with game-based approaches under the novel term “game-inspired PCAs”. We conducted a systematic literature review on this topic, as previous literature reviews on PCAs either have not combined the topics of PCAs and GBL or have done so to a limited extent only. We analyzed the literature regarding the existing design knowledge base, the game elements used, the thematic areas and target groups, the PCA roles and types, the extent of artificial intelligence (AI) usage, and opportunities for adaptation. We reduced the initial 3,034 records to 50 fully coded papers, from which we derived a morphological box and revealed current research streams and future research recommendations. Overall, our results show that the topic offers promising application potential but that scholars and practitioners have not yet considered it holistically. For instance, we found that researchers have rarely provided prescriptive design knowledge, have not sufficiently combined game elements, and have seldom used AI algorithms as well as intelligent possibilities of user adaptation in PCA development. Furthermore, researchers have scarcely considered certain target groups, thematic areas, and PCA roles. Consequently, our paper contributes to research and practice by addressing research gaps and structuring the existing knowledge base

Design Knowledge for the Lifecycle Management of Conversational Agents

Organizations spend extensive resources on artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in customer service in order to remain customer-focused and competitive. A rising language-based application of AI emerges in the context of conversational agents (CAs), such as chatbots, which represent increasingly intelligent, autonomous, scalable, and cost-effective service platforms. However, AI-based CAs bring new organizational challenges. They are underrepresented in current research, leading to many unanswered questions and research potential regarding the management of their introduction, operation, and improvement. To address this issue, we provide design knowledge that considers the organizational perspective of CAs. Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) and qualitative interview study to reveal and analyze individual issues and challenges, develop meta-requirements, and finally, use them to create design principles. We contribute to the emerging field of CAs that has previously focused mainly on the individual, behavioral, interactional, or technical design

Chatbots at Digital Workplaces – A Grounded-Theory Approach for Surveying Application Areas and Objectives

Background: Chatbots are currently on the rise as more and more researchers tackle this topic from different perspectives. Simultaneously, workplaces and ways of working are increasingly changing in the context of digitalization. However, despite the promised benefits, the changes still show problems that should be tackled more purposefully by chatbots. Application areas and underlying objectives of a chatbot application at digital workplaces especially have not been researched yet. Method: To solve the existing problems and close the research gap, we did a qualitative empirical study based on the grounded-theory process. Therefore, we interviewed 29 experts in a cross-section of different industry sectors and sizes. The experts work in the information systems domain or have profound knowledge of (future) workplace design, especially regarding chatbots. Results: We identified three fundamental usage scenarios of chatbots in seven possible application areas. As a result of this, we found both divisional and cross-divisional application areas at workplaces. Furthermore, we detected fifteen underlying objectives of a chatbot operation, which can be categorized from direct over mid-level to indirect ones. We show dependencies between them, as well. Conclusions: Our results prove the applicability of chatbots in workplace settings. The chatbot operation seems especially fruitful in the support or the self-service domain, where it provides information, carries out processes, or captures process-related data. Additionally, automation, workload reduction, and cost reduction are the fundamental objectives of chatbots in workplace scenarios. With this study, we contribute to the scientific knowledge base by providing knowledge from practice for future research approaches and closing the outlined research gap. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol12/iss2/3

Digital transformation in the financial services sector: new business models and value creation

This cumulative dissertation contributes to the field of digital transformation in the financial services sector by providing a synthesis of a set of peer-reviewed scientific articles aimed toward advancing the understanding of the value of innovation in the digital transformation of business models in the financial services sector. With this aim in mind, this dissertation focuses on three main research topics related to the field of digital transformation in financial services, whereby the first research topic addresses the digital transformation of the financial system driven by the integration of business and process innovations. To support the subsequent implementation of strategic responses based on the complexity and scope of the digital transformation required in the financial services industry, a holistic analysis of the macroeconomic and sector-specific influencing factors underlying the digital transformation in the financial services industry is presented. Furthermore, since the integration of innovations in primary or secondary business processes leads to both positive and negative consequential impacts, the ambivalent effect of the integration of digital innovations on advisory work in traditional financial institutions are further examined. The second research topic addresses the structural transformation of the financial sector inherent to the consolidation and long-term sustainability of financial technology (FinTech) companies, through the identification and empirical classification of the success factors intrinsic to the different FinTech business models. Subsequently, given that the incorporation of digital innovations into business processes not only challenges how traditional financial service providers capture and generate business value, but also how they engage with their customers to deliver value, the third research topic first explores, from a technological perspective, the digitalization of the customer interface leveraged by digital communication innovations such as chatbots, and subsequently examines the implementation of chatbots within the context of the financial industry.Diese kumulative Dissertation zielt darauf ab, einen Beitrag zum Bereich der digitalen Transformation im Finanzdienstleistungssektor zu leisten, indem sie eine Synthese einer Reihe von begutachteten wissenschaftlichen Artikeln liefert, die darauf abzielen, das Verständnis für den Wert von Innovationen bei der digitalen Transformation von Geschäftsmodellen im Finanzdienstleistungssektor zu fördern. Mit diesem Ziel vor Augen konzentriert sich diese Dissertation auf drei Hauptforschungsthemen im Bereich der digitalen Transformation im Finanzdienstleistungssektor. Das erste Forschungsthema befasst sich mit der digitalen Transformation des Finanzsystems, die durch die Integration von Geschäfts- und Prozessinnovationen vorangetrieben wird. Um die anschließende Umsetzung strategischer Maßnahmen zu unterstützen, die auf der Komplexität und dem Umfang der in der Finanzdienstleistungsbranche erforderlichen digitalen Transformation basieren, wird in dieser Arbeit eine ganzheitliche Analyse der branchenspezifischen Einflussfaktoren für die digitale Transformation in der Finanzdienstleistungsbranche vorgestellt. Da die Integration von Innovationen in primäre und sekundäre Geschäftsprozesse sowohl zu positiven als auch zu negativen Folgewirkungen führt, werden außerdem die ambivalenten Auswirkungen der Integration digitaler Innovationen auf die Beratungsarbeit in traditionellen Finanzinstituten näher untersucht. Das zweite Forschungsthema befasst sich mit dem strukturellen Wandel des Finanzsektors, der mit der Konsolidierung und langfristigen Nachhaltigkeit von Finanztechnologieunternehmen (FinTech) einhergeht, indem die Erfolgsfaktoren der verschiedenen FinTech-Geschäftsmodelle identifiziert und empirisch klassifiziert werden. Da die Einbindung digitaler Innovationen in die Geschäftsprozesse nicht nur die Art und Weise in Frage stellt, wie traditionelle Finanzdienstleister Geschäftswerte erfassen und generieren, sondern auch, wie sie mit ihren Kunden in Kontakt treten, um Werte zu schaffen, untersucht das dritte Forschungsthema zunächst aus technologischer Sicht die Digitalisierung der Kundenschnittstelle, die durch digitale Kommunikationsinnovationen wie Chatbots ermöglicht wird, und untersucht anschließend die Implementierung von Chatbots im Kontext der Finanzbranche

How May I Help You? – State of the Art and Open Research Questions for Chatbots at the Digital Workplace

Chatbots become quite hyped in recent times as they can provide an intuitive and easy-to-use natural language human-computer interface. Nevertheless, they are not yet widespread in enterprises. Corresponding application areas for collaboration at digital workplaces are lacking and prior research contributions on this topic are limited. In this research paper, we aim at surveying the state of the art as well as showing future research topics. Thus, we conducted a structured literature review and showed that only few first research contributions exist. We also outline current potentials and objectives of chatbot applications. In the discussion of the results of our structured literature review, we show that research gaps are present. To tackle the research gaps, we derive open research questions