Consumer Evaluations of Generative Artificial Intelligence Disclosures in Responses to Health Care Reviews

This article explores the emerging use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in customer service, focusing on responding to online reviews in the health care industry. The authors use real-world consumer reviews and experiments to investigate differences between GenAI- and human-generated responses to reviews, and to assess how they affect consumer perceptions. Importantly, consumers are generally unable to distinguish responses generated by GenAI from human responses. However, transparency about GenAI use significantly alters consumer perceptions, often negatively, but this negative effect varies depending on the source of disclosure and consumers’ subjective knowledge about GenAI. The authors discuss the implications for consumer privacy, welfare, and public policy, emphasizing the need for transparent GenAI use in customer service, especially within sensitive sectors like health care.