From Seeing to Signing Up: The Co-Creative Dance of Humans and AI in Cultivating Symbiotic Uniqueness for Enhanced User Engagement

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) marks a transformative era, empowering users as active collaborators in digital content creations. A critical question arises: how does generative AI differ from traditional AI? We assert that the key difference lies in the co-creation process between humans and machines and introduce the concept of symbiotic uniqueness, emphasizing its emergence based on generative AI's responsiveness to user inputs and its capacity for creating unique, random outputs. In our field experiment exploring two key dimensions – content visibility and loss aversion – we uncovered insightful findings. The revelation of AI-generated images proved to enhance registration more than concealing them, affirming user' preference for immediate proof of AI's capabilities. A mixed reveal strategy hinted at benefits, indicating that a balance of transparency and mystery could pique user curiosity and showcase AI proficiency. The incorporation of loss aversion messaging emphasized the randomness of AI-generated content, significantly increasing sign-ups by leveraging users' fear of missing out on unique experiences. Furthermore, to delve deeper into the co-creation process, we analyzed prompts and identified a positive correlation between prompt length and user engagement, emphasizing the pivotal role of symbiotic uniqueness in shaping user interaction. Leveraging two alternative scenarios that require minimal user effort, we illustrate how user involvement can influence engagement on the platform, highlighting the significance of symbiotic uniqueness in the generative AI landscape. Through our image analysis using machine learning, we observed a positive correlation between image quality and registration, especially evident in the context of loss aversion.