“Honey, Have You Seen Our Hamster?” Consumer Evaluations of Autonomous Domestic Products

Abstract

Several autonomous products have been launched in the marketplace in the past few years. These autonomous products do not need any human intervention but operate on their own. An example of such an autonomous product is the self‐initiating, independent vacuum cleaner that determines when a floor or room needs to be vacuumed, and does the job by itself, returning to the charging station when it needs to recharge its battery. It is unclear, however, to what extent consumers appreciate this autonomy. Autonomous products take over tasks from the user, which leaves the user the opportunity to take part in other activities. However, consumers may also consider these products complex and the use and purchase of such products risky. In addition, people often show a desire for control and may be reluctant to hand over some control to autonomous products. The advantages of autonomous products may thus be partly compensated by several disadvantages.The present study aims to explain overall consumer appreciation for autonomous products by integrating the above‐mentioned factors in a conceptual model. This conceptual framework was tested in an experiment (N=77). The results reveal that consumers perceive highly autonomous products as more risky and complex than less autonomous products. Perceived risk negatively influenced overall consumer appreciation whereas complexity did not affect consumers' appreciation. Relative advantage, however, compensates the negative effect of perceived risk on overall consumer appreciation. Also, contrary to our expectations, we found that people with a high desire for control perceive less risk. We conclude with managerial implications for developers and marketers of autonomous domestic products.