An Application of Voice-based Digital Assistants in the Work Context

A voice-based digital assistant (VBDA) is an AI-powered technology that can refer to a stand-alone device, such as Alexa, Facebook and Google Home, as well as a voice-controlled application embedded in smart technology (e.g. mobile phones, personal computers, watches, TV), such as Siri and Cortana (Liao et al., 2019, Balakrishnan and Dwivedi, 2021). The uniqueness of digital assistants is human-like features supporting voice conversation with their users, and constantly evolving intelligence, enabling the technology to improve its services based on past interactions with users (McLean and Osei-Frimpong, 2019). The intuitive interface, voice control and intelligent capabilities of the technology have made it widely appealing for the general public, who seek to enjoy an unprecedented level of experience personalisation and the efficiency of tasks, such as grocery ordering, booking, appointment scheduling, digital content retrieval and management (McLean and Osei-Frimpong, 2019).
The application of the technology has recently gone beyond personal use. In light of the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many organisations were forced to shift to the work-from-home pattern to ensure business continuity (Carroll and Conboy, 2020, Papagiannidis et al., 2020). This new reality encouraged utilizing information and communication technologies to support remote working. Given the availability of digital assistants in smart home settings (Marikyan et al., 2019), working from home meant that digital assistants could also be used for work-related tasks, such as arranging calls, meetings, retrieving information and other activities. Such a potential spillover application of voice-controlled digital assistants requires an empirical insight into the determinants and the outcomes of the use of the technology for work purposes.