Role of cognitive absorption in building user trust and experience

The growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and its applications in business has proliferated in recent years. Businesses have started adopting various technology practices relevant to automation and AI, and research investigating this phenomenon is becoming increasingly important. Taking this as a cue, the present research investigates the effect of human-to-machine interaction and human-to-human interaction towards cognitive absorption and its subsequent effect on trust, experience, and continuation intention in the context of services. The study built a 3 × 3 factorial design with automated chatbots (machine interaction) and service executives (human interaction) used as a stimulus in the experiment. Data collected from 410 respondents were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings indicated that human-to-machine interaction influences cognitive absorption more positively compared to human-to-human interactions. The study results also provide evidence for the role of the trust, experience, and technology continuation intention in a technology background rooted in human-machine interactions. The present study adds a valuable contribution to the existing literature relevant to human-to-machine interaction, cognitive absorption, trust, experience, and continuation intention. The study also provides valuable inputs to technology and marketing managers.