Voice orientation of conversational interfaces in vehicles

Connected vehicles have become a promising platform for conversational agents. However, drivers might struggle to control systems that feature multiple AI agents. To improve the usability of increasingly complex systems and the user’s interaction experience, the integration of various conversational agents needs to be carefully considered. This study aims to investigate the following: What constitutes an efficient, user-friendly arrangement of the tasks performed by a home and a car artificial intelligence (AI) agent? What is the optimal method to trigger the use of such agents? A between-subjects factorial experiment was conducted with three types of AI agent setting (home AI generalist vs. vehicle AI generalist vs. home and vehicle AI specialists) and two activation methods (voice activation vs. push-to-talk activation). The results indicate that interacting with specialist AI agents enhances the perceived ease of use and the credibility of these agents. Furthermore, voice activation improves the social presence and attractiveness of an AI agent. The findings suggest that an AI agent that offers role specialization and a natural interaction method will improve drivers’ interaction experience.