Credibility and Chatbots – Investigating the influence of chatbot credibility on perceived usefulness among users

Overall, the use of AI is on the rise. A segment that might profit from specific AI technologies is B2B marketing. Chatbots are frequently used as marketing and diagnosis tools, and their added value is to be investigated. As research on chatbots for idea evaluation shows that credibility is an influential factor that might affect the perceived usefulness of the feedback provided by the chatbot. For this study, a survey experiment was designed to examine the association between credibility disclosure and measures of perceived usefulness. The experiment encompasses 2x2 conditions, i.e., credibility disclosed or no statements about credibility and positive or negative feedback. To answer the research questions, only those who received a positive evaluation were included. In total, 30 responses complied with the inclusion criteria, mostly from Germany and Bulgaria. It was explored how useful the feedback provided by the chatbot was perceived among the sample and if there is an association between credibility disclosure and the perceived usefulness. It was found that the respondents perceived the chatbot as neither useful nor useless, while there was no association between credibility and perceived usefulness found in this study. However, this contradicts several findings in the literature that indicate a relationship between usefulness and credibility disclosure, as well as positive effects of the non-human feedback on usefulness measures.