Consumer Decision Making in a World of Digital Tech and AI

ChatGPT in Consumer Decision-Making

This study investigates the influence of GenAI on consumers' information search and retrieval processes in purchase decisions.

Generative AI in Marketing

What is the reality behind the hype? How is generative AI actually being used in marketing and what are the implications for marketers?

The Human Factor in Virtual Influence

Brands often select human-like virtual characters because they are believed to foster a stronger bond of trust with consumers, potentially i

AI at the Point of Sale

This research aims to shed light on consumer preferences for interacting with digital sales assistants in physical retail settings.

Purpose Through the Digital Lens

How are online visibility and the perception of brand purpose related?

Shopping Companions

What does the ideal digital shopping companion look like from the consumers' perspective?

Decision support at the point of sale through social robots

How can recommendation systems be designed with social robots in a way that they are perceived as useful by customers?

Emotional vs Rational Robot Shopping Assistants

This projects studies how interactions with a social robot, designed to emulate human shopping assistants, impact consumer decisions.

Digital Nudges for Sustainable Online Shopping

This project explores how product presentation such as filters, sorting, and sponsored content impact shopper's choices.

The Role of AI in Strategic Marketing Decision-Making

The potential of AI for more efficient and effective business decisions seems huge. While many operational marketing tasks are already automated, the challenging question arises how humans and intelligent machines may collaborate to improve their marketing decision-making on a strategic level.

One Strike and I'm Out

Artificial intelligence and intelligent algorithms are increasingly able to assist or even take over tasks from human decision makers.

There's Fair and there's Fair – Interaction Between Humans and Machines

Nowadays, offers like price qoutes or settlement offers are quite often made by an algorithm rather than a human. But do humans perceive ...

Trust: How Does Eye Contact Influence the Relationship Between Humans and Robots in Purchase Decisions?

The impact of robo-advisors' anthropomorphism and attention cues on consumer trust and investment decisions.

Causality in Business-Analytics and Mental Models

Artificial Voices in Human Choices

The aim of our research project is to analyze the influence of the tone of artificial voices on consumer decisions.

Gaining Marketing Knowledge from Social Media Images

Automatic Image Analysis in Social Media

Mobile Detection of Visual Brand Touchpoints

To enable recording of visual brand contacts across media boundaries, René Schallner and Dr. Carolin Kaiser are developing ...

Virtual Reality as Shopping Environment

Virtual reality enables a high degree of experimental control over product representations and shelf design. Augmented reality opens up new ways of supporting purchasing decisions. We are investigating these possibilities in a collaborative project with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.