Smart Speaker vs. Social Robot in a Case of Hotel Room

Abstract

Under the circumstances that social robots are increasingly being developed and studied in service encounters at public spaces, are they introduced into residential environments (i.e., private space)? This study hypothesizes that a personal assistant device in residential environments should wear human-like appearance to engage in service as conversation partner. We implemented the interaction design that provides regular services as the current personal assistant and additional service as conversation partner, and then conducted a field experiment where the participants stayed in the hotel rooms with a smart speaker or a social robot. The results support the hypothesis in that of conversation amount and emotional experience by conversation. The results also suggest the possibility of commercial service, namely conversational advertisement through social robots.