Healthcare Voice AI Assistants: Factors Influencing Trust and Intention to Use

TL;DR

This study investigates how functional, personal, and risk factors influence trust and adoption of healthcare voice AI assistants, highlighting key determinants and differences from general-purpose voice assistants.

Contribution

It develops a structural model identifying key factors affecting trust in healthcare voice AI assistants based on survey data.

Findings

Trust is influenced by usefulness, content credibility, and service quality.

Security, privacy risks, and personal attitudes significantly impact trust.

Differences exist between healthcare and general-purpose voice assistants.

Abstract

AI assistants such as Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, are making their way into the healthcare sector, offering a convenient way for users to access different healthcare services. Trust is a vital factor in the uptake of healthcare services, but the factors affecting trust in voice assistants used for healthcare are under-explored and this specialist domain introduces additional requirements. This study explores the effects of different functional, personal, and risk factors on trust in and adoption of healthcare voice AI assistants (HVAs), generating a partial least squares structural model from a survey of 300 voice assistant users. Our results indicate that trust in HVAs can be significantly explained by functional factors (usefulness, content credibility, quality of service relative to a healthcare professional), together with security, and privacy risks and personal stance in technology. We also discuss differences in terms of trust between HVAs and general-purpose voice assistants as well as implications that are unique to HVAs.