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Logically everyone knows that software doesn鈥檛 have feelings, but AI chatbots that express emotion鈥攁s well as other advanced artificial intelligence tools like and 鈥攈ave a sentient quality that places them somewhere between machine and human. Conventional customer service wisdom shows that when human employees express positive emotion, customers give higher evaluations of the service. But when emotionally expressive chatbots enter the equation, people鈥檚 reactions change depending on their expectations.

Research by Desautels Faculty of Management professor Elizabeth Han investigates the effects of AI-powered chatbots that express positive emotion in customer service interactions. In theory, making software appear more human and emotionally upbeat sounds like a great idea, but in practice, as Han鈥檚 research shows, most people aren鈥檛 quite ready to make a cognitive leap across the uncanny valley.

鈥淲e found out that if a chatbot expresses positive emotion, it disconfirms people鈥檚 expectation. And what kind of expectation? The expectation that machines cannot feel emotion. How can they express emotion when they cannot feel the emotion? There's this cognitive dissonance coming from that violation of expectation鈥攁nd that's actually causing a negative impact on the customers鈥� evaluation of the service. It鈥檚 like those two competing mechanisms cancel out each other out.鈥� 鈥� Elizabeth Han

Bringing Insight to the Surface

Founded in 2019, Delve is the official thought leadership publication of 捆绑SM社区鈥檚 Desautels Faculty of Management. Under the direction of Professor Saku Mantere, inaugural Editor-in-Chief, Delve features the latest in management thinking that stretches perspectives, sparks new ideas, and brings clarity to decision-makers at all levels and across sectors.