COMMUNICATING A TRUSTWORTHY ONLINE ORGANISATIONAL IDENTITY WITH CHATBOTS

Resumen

Conversational bots, otherwise known as chatbots, operate within the fourth industrial revolution as a client facing form of AI. They are communicative interfaces that mimic human conversation to deliver information in a highly personalised way. The user experience of chatbots can change the way individuals, groups and organisations define themselves online (Whitley, Gal & Kjaergaard, 2014). This paper discusses the opportunities in building an online identity via chatbots, with emphasis on harnessing the properties of chatbots to develop trust with users. Currently, organisations are limited to the properties and affordances of web browsers, search engines and social media to communicate a “shared symbolic representation” (Gioia, 1998). This paper focuses on organisational identities on the Internet, and details both opportunities and vulnerabilities in establishing trust with users through chatbots.