An Immersive Model of User Trust in Conversational Agents in Virtual Reality

Conversational agents (CAs) have been widely adopted for various purposes, ranging from personal assistants to health information providers. While the research on CAs is growing rapidly, less attention is paid to CAs in virtual reality (VR) environments with respect to how the design of these agents influences their trustworthiness as perceived by users, which is key to the adoption and use of VR products featuring CAs. Accordingly, this position paper conceptualizes an immersive model of user trust in CAs in VR. The model is centered around users’ sense of co-presence with CAs in VR, which is influenced by the agents’ embodiment, expressiveness, and responsiveness.