Do you feel empowered by AI service robot? An exploration of consumer's social power perception in human-AI interaction

Nowadays, anthropomorphic AI robots have been widely applied in various service scenarios. Interactions with these human-like AI robots impart a genuine sense of social presence to consumers, endowing the AI robots with distinct social identities and a palpable perception of social power, which in turn dramatically influence consumers' service experiences. Grounded in the theories of automated social presence, processing fluency, and the CAB model of consumer attitudes, this study explores the impact of AI service robots' appearance and communication styles on consumers' social power perception; and further examines how social power perception shape subsequent consumers' psychology and behavior. Results from four scenario-based experiments demonstrate that the high anthropomorphism and servant communication can elicit consumers' higher social power perception. These perceptions subsequently shape consumers' cognition, affect and affective expression towards the AI service robots. Consumers’ stereotypes towards AI robots significantly moderate the impact of social power perception on their cognitive evaluations of these robots. Additionally, this study also reveals that the impact of social power perception in human-AI interaction varies across different scenarios (functional vs. hedonic). This study offers valuable insights for the literature on service robots and provides practical suggestions for optimizing the utilization of AI robots. • Social power plays an important role in human-AI interaction. • High anthropomorphism can enhance consumers' social power perception. • Consumers' social power perception can influence their cognition, affect, and behavior. • Stereotypes play a moderating role in this process.