Future directions for chatbot research: an interdisciplinary research agenda

Abstract

Chatbots are increasingly becoming important gateways to digital services and information—taken up within domains such as customer service, health, education, and work support. However, there is only limited knowledge concerning the impact of chatbots at the individual, group, and societal level. Furthermore, a number of challenges remain to be resolved before the potential of chatbots can be fully realized. In response, chatbots have emerged as a substantial research area in recent years. To help advance knowledge in this emerging research area, we propose a research agenda in the form of future directions and challenges to be addressed by chatbot research. This proposal consolidates years of discussions at the CONVERSATIONS workshop series on chatbot research. Following a deliberative research analysis process among the workshop participants, we explore future directions within six topics of interest: (a) users and implications, (b) user experience and design, (c) frameworks and platforms, (d) chatbots for collaboration, (e) democratizing chatbots, and (f) ethics and privacy. For each of these topics, we provide a brief overview of the state of the art, discuss key research challenges, and suggest promising directions for future research. The six topics are detailed with a 5-year perspective in mind and are to be considered items of an interdisciplinary research agenda produced collaboratively by avid researchers in the field.

Trust and digital privacy: willingness to disclose personal information to banking chatbot services

“…In spite of the advantages of chatbot services, there are several perceived risks about disclosing personal information on the Internet, as identified by Featherman and Hajli ( 2015 ) and Nyugen and Khoa ( 2019 ). Studies conducted by Phelps et al ( 2000 ), Kanter ( 2018 ), Flew ( 2018 ), Degirmenci ( 2020 ) and Følstad et al ( 2021 ) noted that, over the past 20 years, there has been an increase in consumer concern with regard to how much companies know about them, how they obtain the information and the accuracy thereof. However, consumers are still willing to offer up personal information to these companies in order to engage in online commerce (Phelps et al 2000 ; Norberg and Horne 2007 ; Brown and Muchira 2004 ; Zeng et al 2021 ).…”

“…The three dimensions of trust tested in this study may not be the only determining factor in the willingness of users to disclose their personal information. Factors such as perceived risk, perceived benefits, data ownership, ethical use of data, privacy policy, involvement and transparency may also affect user willingness to disclose (de Cosmo et al 2021 ; Følstad et al 2021 ; Isaac and Hanna 2018 ; Nyugen and Khoa 2019 ). This model explores user trust but does not explore how to build that trust with the chatbot digital service through marketing efforts or communication, which will aid in overcoming trust barriers (Aguirre et al 2015 ).…”

“…The chatbot market is expected to continue in its significant growth with some predictions estimating a growth rate of almost 25% (Pantano and Pizzi 2020 ; Song et al 2022 ). This growth has also been stimulated by the growth in virtual assistants by big tech companies (Følstad et al 2021 ). However, to personalise this service, the chatbot requires the consumer to offer up information about themselves (Widener and Lim 2020 ; Aguirre et al 2015 ; Nyugen and Khoa 2019 ).…”

“…Ultimately, trust is necessary to engage in the digital economy and, as it evolves, will increasingly rely on its users disclosing personal information such that it is able to personalise its functions (Papadopoulou et al 2001 ; Alashoor et al 2017 ). Følstad et al ( 2021 ) importantly highlight the fact that chatbot research is also fragmented between multiple scientific disciplines. This study specifically enhances knowledge about both chatbots and digital privacy concerns in financial services, but is also relevant across disciplines as privacy is a universal concern for consumers.…”

Ontology-based Chatbot to Support Monitoring of Server Performance and Security By Rule-base

“…Chatbots are a conversation agent that allows users to access information and services through natural language dialogues, either text or voice [3]. In practice, chatbots can be built independently or use a chat application that provides services to develop chatbots.…”