Artificial social influence via human-embodied AI agent interaction in immersive virtual reality (VR): Effects of similarity-matching during health conversations

Interactions with artificial intelligence (AI) based agents can positively influence human behavior and judgment. However, studies to date focus on text-based conversational agents (CA) with limited embodiment, restricting our understanding of how social influence principles, such as similarity, apply to AI agents (i.e., artificial social influence). We address this gap by leveraging the latest advances in AI (language models) and combining them with immersive virtual reality (VR). Specifically, we built VR-ECAs, or embodied conversational agents that can naturally converse with humans about health-related topics in a virtual environment. Then we manipulated interpersonal similarity via gender matching and examined its effects on biobehavioral (i.e., gaze), social (e.g., agent likeability), and behavioral outcomes (i.e., healthy snack selection). We found an interesting interaction effect between agent and participant gender on biobehavioral outcomes: discussing health with opposite-gender agents tended to enhance gaze duration, with the effect stronger for male participants compared to their female counterparts. A similar directional pattern was observed for healthy snack selection, though it was not statistically significant. In addition, female participants liked the VR-ECAs more than their male counterparts, regardless of the gender of the VR-ECAs. Finally, participants experienced greater presence while conversing with VR-embodied agents than chatting with text-only agents. Overall, our findings highlight embodiment as a crucial factor of influence of AI on human behavior, and our paradigm enables new experimental research at the intersection of social influence, human-AI communication, and immersive virtual reality (VR).