Academic Research - Generative AI in Communications

"Artificial intelligence in communication management: a cross-national study on adoption and knowledge, impact, challenges and risks."

“Artificial intelligence (AI) might change the communication profession immensely, but the academic discourse is lacking an investigation of the perspective of practitioners on this. This article addresses this research gap. It offers a literature overview and reports about an empirical study on AI in communications, presenting first insights on how professionals in the field assess the technology.”

Ansgar Zerfass, Jens Hagelstein, Ralph Tench

Journal of Communication Management

ISSN: 1363-254X

Article publication date: 11 May 2020

Issue publication date: 23 October 2020

Customer–brand relationship in the era of artificial intelligence: understanding the role of chatbot marketing efforts

Automated conversations with customers (e.g. - "Help" customer service chatbots and/or automated social media responses, etc.) can quickly devolve into a communications crisis for brands. This paper is an interesting look at the intersection between AI-generated communications, customer relationships and brands.

For example, an auto-generated response on X (Twitter) may spark a customer boycott. It may be challenging to trace back to the source. Was it a brand chatbot, brand social media response, or was it a troll farm, an activist investor or competitor that kicked things off? Ownership of the problem and the solution may come down to who best understands generative AI.

Summary: This paper “examines how much chat bots affect customer interaction and relationship with the brand. Data from about 1,000 customers and 30 brands was analyzed. Findings – “CMEs (chatbot marketing efforts) have significant direct effects on the quality of communication with chatbot agents and indirectly affect customer–brand relationships (CBR) and customer response. In addition, the findings demonstrate that CBR mediates the association between communication quality and customer response.”

Yang Cheng, Hua Jiang

Journal of Product & Brand Management

ISSN: 1061-0421

Article publication date: 3 June 2021

Issue publication date: 3 February 2022