The Impact of Anthropomorphic and Functional Chatbot Design Features in Enterprise Collaboration Systems on User Acceptance

Information technology is rapidly changing the way how people collaborate in enterprises. Chatbots integrated into enterprise collaboration systems can strengthen collaboration culture and help reduce work overload. In light of a growing usage of chatbots in enterprise collaboration systems, we examine the influence of anthropomorphic and functional chatbot design features on user acceptance. We conducted a survey with professionals familiar with interacting with chatbots in a work environment. The results show a significant effect of anthropomorphic design features on perceived usefulness, with a strength four times the size of the effect of functional chatbot features. We suggest that researchers and practitioners alike dedicate priorities to anthropomorphic design features with the same magnitude as common for functional design features in chatbot design and research.