Conversational Assistance

We design conversational assistance to increase personal productivity and well-being in business and private life

Research Activities

 

"Humanized" Chatbots

Many chatbots are designed to look and act like humans (e.g., by giving them names and avatars). Likewise, Alexa and Siri have human-like characteristics (e.g., a female voice). Why is that? Does it influence how we interact with them?

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Hybrid Customer Service

Chatbots are omnipresent in customer service, but too often struggle with non-routine questions and can't solve difficult problems. As a result, many companies use a hybrid approach where human employees can step in if the chatbot fails. This raises several questions that we explore together with our industry partners: When should a chatbot hand over to a human? Should customers know about behind-the-scenes human involvement?

 

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Chatbot Analytics Systems

Real-world chatbots in domains such as customer service are often far from perfect. One way for chatbot developers and chatbot managers to improve them is to analyze usage data for problems and potentials. However, large-scale data analysis is labor-intensive and requires a structured approach. Our research addresses this challenge by developing new chatbot analytics methods and systems. Based on knowledge from related disciplines such as process mining or linguistic analysis, these aim to provide valuable insights for developers and managers.

 

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Can Chatbots Be Therapists?

There is an increasing demand for psychological support, but not everyone receives therapy or wants to talk to a human therapist. Together with our colleagues from the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Greifswald, we aim to answer the following questions: Can we use chatbots as virtual therapists? How do we need to design them to effectively provide psychological support?

 

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Software Robots in Team Collaboration

Platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams are a central hub for virtual team collaboration in organizational and educational setting. As software robots (“bots”) have become an integral part of these platforms, we investigate how bots can support collaboration by providing team feedback and facilitating knowledge sharing activities.

 

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Replaced by a (Software) Robot?

 

Software robots, such as robotic process automation (RPA) bots, are increasingly used to automate repetitive tasks formerly performed by human employees (e.g., copy-pasting data). But how do employees respond when their new colleague is a robot? And how does it affect employees’ work practices?

 

Learn more about our research project MeKIDI

 

Partners

Heidelberger Services AG

EnBW

 

Interested in our topics? Send us an email now and join our team as a student research assistant!

 

Publications


2023
The New Dream Team? A Review of Human-AI Collaboration Research From a Human Teamwork Perspective
Braun, M.; Greve, M.; Gnewuch, U.
2023. Rising like a Phoenix: Emerging from the Pandemic and Reshaping Human Endeavors with Digital Technologies ICIS 2023. Ed.: R. De’, AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
Towards Designing a NLU Model Improvement System for Customer Service Chatbots
Schloß, D.; Gnewuch, U.; Mädche, A.
2023. 18th International Conference on Wirtschaftsinformatik, September 2023, Paderborn, Germany, AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
More Than a Bot? The Impact of Disclosing Human Involvement on Customer Interactions with Hybrid Service Agents
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Hinz, O.; Kellner, R.; Maedche, A.
2023. Information Systems Research. doi:10.1287/isre.2022.0152
Chatbot Analytics mittels Betriebsdaten
Schloß, D.; Gnewuch, U.; Maedche, A.
2023. Robotik in der Wirtschaftsinformatik. Hrsg.: S. D’Onofrio, 167–192, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-39621-3_9
Designing a Conversation Mining System for Customer Service Chatbots
Schloß, D.; Espitia, J. D. G.; Gnewuch, U.
2023. ECIS 2023 Proceedings, AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
2022
Towards Designing a Conversation Mining System for Customer Service Chatbots
Schloß, D.; Gnewuch, U.; Mädche, A.
2022. ICIS 2022 Proceedings. Bd.: 1, AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
Understanding the impact of control levels over emotion-aware chatbots
Benke, I.; Gnewuch, U.; Maedche, A.
2022. Computers in human behavior, 129, Art.-Nr.: 107122. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.107122
Match or Mismatch? How Matching Personality and Gender between Voice Assistants and Users Affects Trust in Voice Commerce
Reinkemeier, F.; Gnewuch, U.
2022. Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2022), 4326–4335
A Framework of Personality Cues for Conversational Agents
Ahmad, R.; Siemon, D.; Gnewuch, U.; Robra-Bissantz, S.
2022. Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, January 3-7, 2022. Ed.: T. Bui, 4286–4295
Conversation Mining for Customer Service Chatbots
Schloß, D.; Gnewuch, U.
2022. 6th International Workshop, CONVERSATIONS 2022, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, November 22–23, 2022
Can Humanizing Voice Assistants Unleash the Potential of Voice Commerce?
Reinkemeier, F.; Gnewuch, U.; Toporowski, W.
2022. Proceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Information Systems
BotOrNot: A Platform for Conducting Experiments with Undisclosed Chat Agents
Hanschmann, L.; Gnewuch, U.; Mädche, A.
2022. Mensch und Computer 2022 - Tagungsband. Ed.: B. Pfleging, 495–500, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi:10.1145/3543758.3547517
Opposing Effects of Response Time in Human–Chatbot Interaction: The Moderating Role of Prior Experience
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Adam, M. T. P.; Maedche, A.
2022. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 64, 773–791. doi:10.1007/s12599-022-00755-x
A Personalized Conversational Agent to Treat Depression in Youth and Young Adults – A Transdisciplinary Design Science Research Project
Kuhlmeier, F. O.; Gnewuch, U.; Lüttke, S.; Brakemeier, E.-L.; Mädche, A.
2022. The Transdisciplinary Reach of Design Science Research – 17th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology, DESRIST 2022, St Petersburg, FL, USA, June 1–3, 2022, Proceedings. Ed.: A. Drechsler, 30–41, Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-06516-3_3
Toward a Method for Reviewing Software Artifacts from Practice
Gnewuch, U.; Mädche, A.
2022. The Transdisciplinary Reach of Design Science Research – 17th International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems and Technology, DESRIST 2022, St Petersburg, FL, USA, June 1–3, 2022, Proceedings. Ed.: A. Drechsler, 337–350, Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-06516-3_25
Designing Effective Conversational Repair Strategies for Chatbots
Reinkemeier, F.; Gnewuch, U.
2022. Proceedings of the 30th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2022)
Designing Personality-Adaptive Conversational Agents for Mental Health Care
Ahmad, R.; Siemon, D.; Gnewuch, U.; Robra-Bissantz, S.
2022. Information Systems Frontiers, 24, 923–943. doi:10.1007/s10796-022-10254-9
2021
Understanding Employee Responses to Software Robots: A Systematic Literature Review
Seiffer, A.; Gnewuch, U.; Mädche, A.
2021. ICIS 2021 Proceedings, Austin, TX, Dec. 12-15, 2021, Paper No. 1358, AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
The Benefits and Caveats of Personality-Adaptive Conversational Agents in Mental Health Care
Ahmad, R.; Siemon, D.; Gnewuch, U.; Robra-Bissantz, S.
2021. Proceedings of the 27th Americas Conference on Information Systems - Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Virtual Conference, August 9-13, 2021 (AMCIS 2021), AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
2020
The Effect of Anthropomorphism on Investment Decision-Making with Robo-Advisor Chatbots
Morana, S.; Gnewuch, U.; Jung, D.; Granig, C.
2020. Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2020), AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
The Effect of Perceived Similarity in Dominance on Customer Self-Disclosure to Chatbots in Conversational Commerce
Gnewuch, U.; Yu, M.; Maedche, A.
2020. Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS 2020), AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
2019
A Taxonomy of Social Cues for Conversational Agents
Feine, J.; Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Maedche, A.
2019. International journal of human - computer studies, 132, 138–161. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.07.009
The Impact of Chatbot Response Time on Human-Chatbot Interaction: Novice versus Experienced Users [in press]
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Adam, M. T. P.; Maedche, A.
2019. JAIS Theory Development Workshop
Gender Bias in Chatbot Design
Feine, J.; Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Maedche, A.
2019. Chatbot Research and Design: Third International Workshop, CONVERSATIONS 2019, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, November 19-20, 2019, Revised Selected Papers. Ed.: A. Følstad, 79–93, Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-39540-7_6
Designing and Implementing a B2B Chatbot: Insights from a Medium-Sized Service Provider in the Energy Industry
Gnewuch, U.; Heckmann, C.; Morana, S.; Maedche, A.
2019. Human practice, digital ecologies, our future : 14. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2019), Siegen, 23.02. - 27.02.2019. Ed.: L. Thomas, Universität Siegen
Measuring Service Encounter Satisfaction with Customer Service Chatbots using Sentiment Analysis
Feine, J.; Morana, S.; Gnewuch, U.
2019. 14. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI2019), 1115–1129
2018
“The Chatbot is typing …” – The Role of Typing Indicators in Human-Chatbot Interaction
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Adam, M. T. P.; Maedche, A.
2018. Proceedings of the 17th Annual Pre-ICIS Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, San Francisco, CA, USA, December 13th , 2018
Faster Is Not Always Better: Understanding the Effect of Dynamic Response Delays in Human-Chatbot Interaction
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Adam, M. T. P.; Maedche, A.
2018. 26th European Conference on Information Systems: Beyond Digitization - Facets of Socio-Technical Change, ECIS 2018, Portsmouth, UK, June 23-28, 2018. Ed.: U. Frank, Code 143975
Designing Conversational Agents for Energy Feedback
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Heckmann, C.; Maedche, A.
2018. Designing for a Digital and Globalized World: 13th International Conference, Proceedings, DESRIST 2018, Chennai, India, June 3-6, 2018. Ed.: S. Chatterjee, 18–33, Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-91800-6_2
2017
Towards Designing Cooperative and Social Conversational Agents for Customer Service
Gnewuch, U.; Morana, S.; Maedche, A.
2017. Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Seoul, ROK, December 10-13, 2017. Research-in-Progress Papers., AIS eLibrary (AISeL)
Interaktion mit smarten Systemen : Aktueller Stand und zukünftige Entwicklungen im Bereich der Nutzerassistenz
Morana, S.; Friemel, C.; Gnewuch, U.; Maedche, A.; Pfeiffer, J.
2017. Wirtschaftsinformatik & Management, 9 (5), 42–51. doi:10.1007/s35764-017-0101-7