Do We Trust Artificially Intelligent Assistants at Work? An Experimental Study

The fourth industrial revolution is bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into various workplaces, and many businesses worldwide are already capitalizing on AI assistants. Trust is essential for the successful integration of AI into organizations. We hypothesized that people have higher trust in human assistants than AI assistants and that people trust AI assistants more if they have more control over their activities. To test our hypotheses, we utilized a survey experiment with 828 participants from Finland. Results showed that participants would rather entrust their schedule to a person than to an AI assistant. Having control increased trust in both human and AI assistants. The results of this study imply that people in Finland still have higher trust in traditional workplaces where people, rather than smart machines, perform assisting work. The findings are of relevance for designing trustworthy AI assistants, and they should be considered when integrating AI technology into organizations.