Artificial Intelligence in Electronic Commerce: Investigating the Customers' Acceptance of Using Chatbots
Journal of System and Management Sciences · 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an important tool for companies trying to gain a competitive edge in the online market.Business to Consumer (B2C) e-commerce firms are increasingly integrating chatbots as virtual shopping assistants for providing more personalized and efficient shopping experiences to online customers.Chatbots are AI-powered software programs that can communicate with users through text or voice interfaces.However, there is a lack of research on the acceptance of chatbots in B2C e-commerce in Egypt.Therefore, this research tries to fill the gap in ecommerce chatbot literature by investigating the acceptance of the use of chatbots in online shopping among Egyptian users by applying the Use and Gratification theory.This is an exploratory study using a quantitative survey-based approach for collecting data from online Egyptian customers on their attitudes or intentions to use Chatbots in online shopping.The data were analysed by using regression analysis for identifying factors that influence user acceptance and usage of chatbots.The results revealed that both of hedonic and technology factors have positive influence on users' behavioural intention.While the risk factor which has two sub-factors namely; privacy and immature technology has negative influence on customers' behavioural intentions.The study contributes to the expanding body of literature on the acceptance and use of Chatbots among customers in B2C e-commerce context.In addition, the study's findings give significant insights for Egyptian online retailers looking to implement Chatbots in their customer service strategy.