Darius-Aurel Frank

Healthy older adults (65+) represent a rapidly growing and economically significant consumer segment.

Smart technologies (AI, intelligent automation, service robots) can significantly enhance their customer experience by accommodating older consumers' evolving sensory, cognitive, and socio-emotional capacities.

Technological innovations can provide tailored, enjoyable, and convenient experiences in both physical and digital settings.

Successful adaptation requires addressing age-related stereotypes and prioritizing personalized, inclusive service designs.

Consumers show persistent bias against advice from AI agents

High decision stakes lead consumers to prefer human advice over AI advice

This effect is more (less) pronounced in medical (legal, retail) decisions

Perceived self-threat influences AI advice acceptance, particularly in high-stakes decisions

AI combined with human agents shows mixed but more positive results

Both human and robotic employee avatars reduce consumer purchase behavior, including time and money spent, in embarrassing metaverse contexts

Consumers recall the brand of embarrassing products less but are more likely to remember the sale in the presence of avatar employees

The negative impact of avatars is significant in embarrassing settings but not in non-embarrassing ones

Marketers should avoid using avatars to promote embarrassing products in the metaverse

Visual fidelity of VR headsets and task affect memory performance and spending

Higher visual fidelity increases explicit memory performance

Lower visual fidelity increases implicit memory performance for browsing tasks

In-store spending decreases with higher explicit memory performance