Seeing is Believing: Improving the Perceived Trust in Visually Embodied Alexa in Augmented Reality

Voice-activated Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs) such as Amazon Alexa offer a natural and realistic form of interaction that pursues the level of social interaction among real humans. The user experience with such technologies depends to a large degree on the perceived trust in and reliability of the IVA. In this poster, we explore the effects of a three-dimensional embodied representation of Amazon Alexa in Augmented Reality (AR) on the user's perceived trust in her being able to control Internet of Things (IoT) devices in a smart home environment. We present a preliminary study and discuss the potential of positive effects in perceived trust due to the embodied representation compared to a voice-only condition.