Intention to adopt services by AI avatar: A protection motivation theory perspective

Abstract

Understanding how infection threats, such as COVID-19 affect the adoption of new non-contact services is important for the development and marketing of services that require significant investment. Combining protection motivation theory (PMT) and the technology acceptance model (TAM) with service trust, and including gender and age as control variables, we investigate the factors affecting consumers' intention to adopt new AI avatar services after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data collection was conducted through an online survey of consumers in the United States for a week. Hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation modeling. The findings show that protection motivation theory variables more significantly influence the acceptance of new services than either the TAM variables or service trust. Furthermore, the threat-appraisal process more strongly influences attitudes and adoption intention toward a recommended protection response than the typical coping-appraisal process. Our new model expands the theory of consumer acceptance of new services by including the PMT perspective in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In practice, service providers need to reflect in their marketing strategies to reflect the observation that consumers perceive the severity and vulnerability of external threats: the greater the perceived response efficacy, the greater the adoption of a new service, in a manner that can rival the perceived usefulness and ease of use.