When automation backfires: exploring the impact of consumer resistance to AI application in hybrid service agents
Yupeng Mou, Juan Wang, Zhihua Ding, Jing Huang, Zihan Wang · Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management · 2025
The advancement of AI has reshaped the service environment in the tourism and hospitality industries, transitioning from solely human-provided services to hybrid AI-human service delivery. Given the hedonic nature of tourism and hospitality experiences, the frustration of consumers’ psychological needs adversely affects their use of AI services. However, few studies have focused on consumers’ negative experiences and resistance to AI services. This study focuses on the degree of AI application in hybrid services as a holistic construct to investigate its impact on consumer resistance, aiming to uncover the “black box” of resistance. Through one on-site survey and three scenario-based studies, we found that the degree of AI application in hybrid service agents can elicit consumer alienation, manifeste d primarily as social isolation and powerlessness, leading to resistance to AI services. Moreover, AI with a high automated social presence can mitigate these effects, while high-autonomy AI exacerbates them. These findings are of great significance for academic research on AI and for tourism and hospitality managers in deploying AI-human hybrid service agents.