Human or AI Customer Service? The Role of Anthropomorphic Avatars in Shaping First Impressions of Chatbots

Anthropomorphic avatars serve as a key tool to humanizing chatbots. This study aimed to investigate the effects of four specific anthropomorphic visual design—human avatars, caricatured avatars, zoomorphic avatars, and functional avatars—on users' first impressions of customer service chatbots. A combination of subjective evaluation and eye-tracking methods were employed to capture users' initial responses. The results revealed that the anthropomorphic nature of chatbot avatars influences users' perceptions of whether the chatbot is human or artificial intelligence, with more human-like designs increasing the likelihood of being categorized as human. Both human and caricatured chatbot avatars enchanced perceptions of warmth, competence, social presence and trust, whlie also generating higher fixation counts and longer fixation durations compared to the other two avatar types. In conclusion, anthropomorphic avatar play a critial role in shaping users' subjective impressions and visual engagement with customer-service chatbots. A key implication of this study is that chatbot avatars should incorporate a high degree of anthropomorphism to foster positive first impressions among users. However, given the privacy concernss associated with using real photos, it is not necessary to use images of actual individuals. Instead, caricatured avatars can effectively enhance users' first impressions while mitigating potential drawbacks of hyper-realistic designs, such as uncanny valley effects or mismatched user expectations. Furthermore, this study demonsterates the feasibility of using eye-tracking tools to evaluate avatar designs in customer-service chatbots.