Low perceived warmth of AI agents reduces trust towards them
Katarzyna Samson, Tomasz Zaleskiewicz · Scientific Reports · 2026
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents represent a new class of social actors within social and economic systems. To ensure the smooth functioning of human-AI societies, it is crucial to understand how trust between humans and AI agents is developed. The present study (N = 400), conducted on a representative sample of U.S. residents, investigated how the fundamental dimensions of social perception may affect differences in trust towards humans and AI agents. We manipulated human and AI trustees’ warmth and competence and measured trust towards them in a trust game. Overall, AI trustees were trusted less than human trustees were, especially in the low warmth conditions. We discuss warmth as a crucial determinant of trust in the context of human-AI interactions and suggest potential implications of these results for designing trustworthy AI systems.