The cuter, the better? The impact of cuteness on intention to purchase AI voice assistants: A moderated serial-mediation model

Due to the lockdown, more and more people are used to communicating with AI voice assistants during the post-COVID era. This study investigates the relationship between the perceived cuteness of AI voice assistants and the intention to purchase via a moderated serial-mediation model. We tested a PLS-SEM model with 284 survey data from an online experiment. The findings indicate that: (1) different cuteness appearances lead to different levels of perceived cuteness; (2) perceived cuteness positively affects intention to purchase; (3) the positive direct effect is serial mediated by social presence and user engagement; (4) the serial mediation effect is negatively moderated by perceived risk of service failure, which means the positive influence of perceived cuteness on intention to purchase is weakened at a high level of perceived risk. Our research has both theoretical and managerial contributions, which also reminds enterprises to grasp the cuteness degree of the product.