The Adoption and Use of Smart Assistants in Residential Homes: The Matching Hypothesis

Abstract

An increasing number of residential homes are equipped with smart assistants such as Cortana, Alexa, and Siri. Adoption rates and the frequency of the usage of smart assistants vary across users and residential homes. Building on the theory of uses and gratifications (UGT) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2), the objective of this paper was to examine whether the intended use of a digital assistant would moderate the effects of performance expectancy and hedonic motivation on its adoption. Two experiments (N = 345 and N = 351) tested the hypothesis that, for utilitarian purposes, devices with high performance appraisal are preferred, whereas for entertainment purposes, devices with high hedonic appraisal are preferred. The experiments manipulated the performance expectancy and hedonic motivation towards several digital assistants by varying how the assistants were introduced. Participants were asked which assistant they would choose for a variety of utilitarian and entertainment purposes. As expected, the experiments supported the proposed matching hypothesis, revealing that the devices that were high in performance appraisal were preferred for utilitarian tasks, whereas the devices high in hedonic appraisal were preferred for entertainment needs. These results suggest that a device’s introduction can change people’s perceptions of the device and subsequently their decision to use it.