Making sense of machines that make sense of us
We study the effects of empathic AI on human judgment, decision-making, and well-being through rigorous experiments with AI voice agents.
How we work
The AI Empathy Lab brings together researchers in marketing, psychology, behavioral science, and computer science to investigate how empathic AI, in the form of assistants, agents, and companions, shapes consumer behavior.
Our approach is distinctly experimental, and our medium is the voice. We conduct controlled experiments with real, working AI agents and systematically manipulate the dimensions of their behavior that matter most: the empathy they express, the persuasive strategies they employ, and their capacity to remember.
Five questions we are answering
When a machine understands you, do you buy differently?How empathy in AI shopping agents shapes trust, product choice, decision satisfaction, and reliance.Can an empathic voice close the gap between good intentions and real behavior?Whether empathic AI advisors can turn sustainable intentions into sustainable choices, and where ethical persuasion ends.What happens when an AI companion remembers you?How empathy and long-term memory shape relationships between older adults and AI companions, and what follows for healthy aging.When things go wrong, can a machine's empathy make them right?Empathy as an emotional buffer: when an empathic response repairs a failed interaction, and when it merely decorates one.What if the voice itself could tell us how consumers feel?Voice-analytics methods that read consumer emotion directly from prosody: rhythm, intonation, pace, and the signals beneath the words.
Latest research
Working paperSSRN
The Right Time for AI Empathy in Voice Commerce: Attribution Processes and Product Category Shape Decision Satisfaction
Mari, A., Uysal, D. E., Brooks, J., & Alabed, A.
Working paperSSRN
Generative AI-Enabled Empathy and Persuasion in Voice Assistants: Impact on Sustainable Consumer Choice
Mari, A., Uysal, D. E., Alabed, A., Efthymiou, F., & Brooks, J.
Working paperSSRN
No Hard Feelings: The Protective Power of AI Empathy During Service Interaction Failures
Efthymiou, F., Mari, A., Uysal, E., & Brooks, J.
Working paperSSRN
The Voice of Emotion: Advancing Marketing Research Through Real-Time AI Emotion Measurements
Uysal, E., Alavi, S., Brooks, J., Mari, A., & Efthymiou, F.
