Talking to Voice Assistants: Exploring Negative and Positive Users’ Perceptions

The widespread use of voice assistants (VAs), which collect and process a huge volume of user data through user interactions, is beginning to attract the attention of marketing researchers.The early studies investigating consumers’ negative (i.e., risk) and positive (i.e., benefits) perceptions related to users-VAs interactions appear partial and fragmented. Consequently, this paper aims at exploring the key perceptual factors of risk and benefits of interactions with VAs on smartphones. Then, we propose to profile Generation Y users according to their perceptions and analyse whether they are significantly different in terms of frequency of VA use, VA attitude, VA familiarity, innovativeness and age. By adopting a quantitative exploratory approach, 349 questionnaires are collected and validated. By running an exploratory factor analysis, a three-factor solution is outlined. Besides, the non-hierarchical k-means cluster analysis highlights three Generation Y user clusters. This research contributes to the nascent strand of studies on user perceptions related to interactions with VAs, by offering an overall view of perceived risk and benefits. Finally, we propose to marketers strategic guidelines in terms of targeting and marketing communication design.