The purpose of this chapter was to develop and verify a theoretical model to understand the ways that potential customers perceive and act toward AI-made products. The author began the chapter with a review of the existing literature to extract the most fundamental elements, both internal and external to the customers, which can affect their perceptions and behaviours. From there, the author proposed and tested a theoretical model that can explain customer attitudes toward a new type of music: AI-made music. Using data gathered from a young customer sample (n = 219) in Japan, the author found that perceived product/service attributes and customers' personal characteristics had significant impacts on customer purchase intentions, while perceived seller attributes and environment characteristics had not. These findings helped expand the literature on customer attitudes by introducing and investigating an aggregated model on the one hand. They also provided practical support for the commercialization of the AI-made products industry in the future on the other.
TopIntroduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a computer system with the “ability to interpret external data correctly, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2019). First created in 1954 (Lungarella, Iida, Bongard, & Pfeifer, 2007; Pan, 2016), generations of AI have been employed in certain industries and life sectors for several decades, for example, in agriculture, engineering, medicine and health care, telecommunications, and transportation, among others (Afan, El-shafie, Mohtar, & Yaseen, 2016; Hamet & Tremblay, 2017; Jung, et al., 2021; Liu, Yang, Zio, & Chen, 2018; Mata, et al., 2018; Vaishya, Javaid, Khan, & Haleem, 2020). Today, AI is even creating its own products, such as music and paintings (Hong, Peng, & Williams, 2020; Starkey, Steenhauer, & Caven, 2020). In the near future, the amounts of products created by AI, especially virtual products, will undoubtedly increase. At the same time, the size of the AI-made products market will also expand. Academic research on customer perceptions of and intentions concerning such products, therefore, is especially necessary at this early stage.
To understand customer perceptions and behaviours (or their attitudes; Breckler, 1984), many theories have been proposed and tested. For example, Ajzen (1991) initiated the planned behaviour theory, which takes into account customers’ beliefs, perceived subjective norms, and behavioural control. Arnould and Thompson (2005) and Askegaard and Linnet (2011), through the consumer culture theory, added sociocultural elements of the marketplace. From a different perspective, Sharma, Markon, and Clark (2014) mentioned the impulsive behaviour theory, which explains consumers’ behaviours by their situational emotions. In addition, Kim and Lennon (2013) and Sirgy (1985), with the self-congruity theory and the stimulus-organism-response theory, suggested that the characteristics of the sellers and their products or services also have important influences on customers’ attitudes. These theories and their theoretical elements, interestingly, seem to be able to explain consumers’ perceptions of and behaviours toward certain virtual man-made products, such as game characters, avatar clothing, weapons, furniture, currencies, and tokens (Hamari & Keronen, 2017). However, the factors that might be important for customers’ perceptions of and behaviours toward AI-made products still remain largely unknown.
The purpose of the study reported in this chapter is to develop and verify a theoretical model to understand the ways that potential customers perceive and act toward AI-made products. The author begins the chapter with a review of the existing literature to extract the most fundamental elements, both internal and external to the customers, which can affect their perceptions and behaviours. From there, the author will propose and test a theoretical model that can explain customer attitudes toward a new type of music: AI-made music. These efforts will expand the literature on customer attitudes by introducing and investigating an aggregated model on the one hand. The findings will also provide practical support for the commercialization of the AI-made products industry in the future on the other.