Essays on Artificial Intelligence and Human Behavior in the Marketplace

Abstract

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly reshaping the marketplace, yet critical questions remain about how people perceive, communicate with, and collaborate alongside these systems. This dissertation investigates the relationship between AI and human behavior in the marketplace through three dimensions: people, process, and performance. The first essay examines consumer perceptions of AI-using service providers. Across five experiments, we find that consumers evaluate services less favorably when providers use AI, even when informed that AI improves service quality, because they perceive AI-using providers as less warm and less competent. The second essay investigates how communication style shifts when marketers instruct GenAI rather than human colleagues. Across nine studies, we find that marketers naturally prioritize their instrumental goals by using a lower density of filler words, including pleasantries, hedges, and expressions of gratitude, when instructing GenAI, because communicating with GenAI deactivates interpersonal goals such as rapport building and impression management. Contrary to popular advice, prioritizing instrumental goals during GenAI communication improves the quality of GenAI’s marketing output. The third essay explores how organizational review structures shape human–AI collaboration. Across seven experiments, we find that workers who anticipate outcome-focused review modify AI-generated content less, effectively outsourcing rather than collaborating with AI. This effect attenuates when reviewers can observe the process alongside the outcome. Together, these three essays offer insights for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by illuminating the user perceptions that shape AI adoption, the communication processes that govern human–AI interaction, and the organizational structures that determine human–AI collaboration quality.