The Double-Edged Sword Effects of Empathic AI on Employee Helping Behavior

Although research in the fields of psychotherapy, medical care, and education has identified some benefits and costs of empathic AI, there is a lack of knowledge about its impacts in the workplace. Integrating social actors theory and social exchange theory, we examine the positive and negative effects of empathic AI from the employee-AI interaction perspective and employee-coworker interaction perspective. Based on two surveys, we found that in the employee-AI interaction, empathic AI is positively associated with employee AI trust, which further promotes helping behavior to AI; in the employee-coworker interaction, empathic AI is positively associated with employee psychological entitlement, which in turn reduces helping behavior to coworkers. Additionally, employee performance pressure moderates these effects. When performance pressure is high, the positive impact of empathic AI on employee-AI interactions and the negative impact on employee-coworker interactions are both stronger. Taken together, our findings provide new insights into the influences of empathic AI and make some theoretical and practical implications.