Fun by design : visual form, realism, and the hedonic appeal of AI-powered virtual assistants

Abstract

Despite ongoing debates about the benefits and challenges of AI in retail, advances in AI continue to drive the evolution of virtual assistants (VAs). Initially limited to simple, formless chatbots, VAs have progressively incorporated visual representations and, more recently, hyper-realistic, human-like digital personas enabled by AI. While these innovations have significantly enhanced the form and realism of VAs, their true impact remains underexplored, with mixed evidence on how such visual improvements influence consumer perception and, ultimately, VA service quality. Complicating this issue is a persistent theoretical bias in the existing literature, which predominantly depends on technology-, social-, and cognitive-centered frameworks. Although technology-based theories were useful in early VA adoption, their explanatory power declines as consumer familiarity grows. Moreover, the online retail context—where VAs primarily operate—limits the relevance of traditional social and cognitive theories. Unlike goal-driven, socially interactive in-store shopping, online retail is often solitary, self-paced, and hedonic. Online consumers browse not only to fulfill functional or cognitive needs but also to seek leisure, escape from daily routines (liberation), and indulge in immersive pleasure (hedonic engagement), treating shopping as a source of fun and stress relief. Given these dynamics, VA research must move beyond traditional frameworks to better capture the hedonic nature of modern online retail. To address these gaps, we examine how VA form and realism influence consumer evaluations of VA services, focusing on the mediating roles of liberation, hedonic engagement, and fun, as outlined in consumer fun theory. Using VA stimuli generated by AI tools, we conducted three experimental studies. Study 1 found that simply adding a visual form to VA (compared to no form) significantly improved consumer evaluations, mediated by liberation, hedonic engagement, and fun. Study 2 showed that increasing VA form realism (high vs. low) further amplified service evaluations through the same mediation pathways. Study 3 confirmed these effects and revealed that recreation-oriented shoppers experienced stronger mediation effects than task-oriented shoppers. Together, these findings offer fresh theoretical and practical insights for enhancing VA design and deployment in online retail environments. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]