Decision support at the point of sale through social robots

As a result of digitization, consumers increasingly navigate their everyday lives in the digital realm. Consumer purchasing decisions are increasingly supported by artificial intelligence-based digital communication approaches such as personalized product recommendation systems or chatbots. With the emergence of social robots, there is the possibility of bringing such digital communication approaches into physical locations such as retailers or museums.

Within the scope of the research project, the aim is to investigate whether and how effective conversation-based recommendation systems can be designed with social robots in a way that is perceived as useful and appealing by consumers. Within a design-oriented research framework, prototypical implementations are designed and evaluated from both a technical and consumer perspective. The goal is to identify relevant design elements of effective interactions with social robots in the context of consumer decisions. The focus is particularly on the use of social robots in retail and tourism.