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Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI), also called machine intelligence, has brought about innovation in many business industries (Cheng and Jiang, 2020a; Kietzmann and Pitt, 2020). The field of digital marketing and interactive messaging service powered by AI, also called a chatbot e-service, has picked up the pace fastest (Desaulniers, 2016). Across different industries, an increasing number of brands are being transformed from conventional customer service models to chatbot digital solutions (Forbes, 2017). Domino’s chatbot marketing activities on Twitter, for instance, allow customers to order pizza with the ease of a chat. Bots from Universal Orlando Resort provide personalized information to customers such as the nearest restaurants or restrooms, available tickets and ride waiting times.
The US market has witnessed the launch of more than 30,000 chatbots on messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Viber and around two billion messages are sent per month on these platforms (Sproutsocial, 2019). Based on a nationally representative sample of 1,051 adults, researchers found that 56% of surveyed Americans would rather send messages than call customer service and 53% of customers preferred brands that offered messaging services (Devaney, 2018). AI-powered chatbots now allow customers to interact with virtual marketing service agents at any time and from anywhere (Cheng and Jiang, 2020b). The human-computer interaction provides new modes for brands to develop a deeper relationship with customers through ongoing and customized “dialogues” instead of one-way purchases (Huang and Rust, 2018). Because of ongoing advances in mimicking natural language in AI, chatbots are designed to communicate with humans or even substituted for human agents in digital marketing (Kumar et al., 2016).
As Business Insider (2020) predicted, the chatbot market will become the fastest-growing market from 2019 to 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 31.6% in the customer service segment. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people have been locked down at home and human agents have become unavailable, customers have had to rely on online tools such as chatbots, to seek information and make decisions about purchasing products and selecting brands for purchases. The adoption of chatbots could enhance relationships between brands and customers through diverse marketing activities.
In the field of brand management, scholars have devoted attention to the features and applications of AI technologies for brand marketing...