Talking Avatar Effects Consumer Perceptions of Social Presence, Information Credibility, Website Trust, and Patronage Intention

Using the talking avatar tool, you can create a virtual character that mimics your movements and speech. This is useful in creating customer service videos, a virtual assistant, and more. These virtual characters can also be customized with a variety of facial expressions and animations. There are different options available for this type of video editing software, such as Adobe Character Animator (formally known as CrazyTalk) or Vyond.

The primary objective of this study is to investigate whether the presence of non-interactive talking avatars induces higher perceptions of social presence, information credibility, website trust, and patronage intention compared to their absence. The secondary goal is to examine the moderating effect of user gender on these effects.

There has been little research on the effect of embodied conversational avatars, particularly their design and use on consumer behavior. The present study intends to fill this gap in knowledge by examining the effects of the non-interactive talking avatar on consumer perceptions of social presence, information credibility, and website trust.

It has been found that the presence of a non-interactive talking avatar affects consumer perceptions of social presence, information credibility, websites trust, and patronage intention in the same way as the presence of a human sales advocate. This is attributed to the theory of computer as social actor, which stipulates that users reciprocate avatars’ interactive cues and assign them social connotations. Furthermore, the persona effect suggests that consumers perceive a non-interactive talking avatar as the proximate messenger of product information. talking avatar