The conversational interface has been commercialized in various forms, from assistants built into personal devices to agents in the form of artificial intelligence (AI) speakers. An agent in the form of an AI speaker is often used by multiple users in a physically shared space. Because of changes in using environments, research on conversational agents is mostly conducted on single-user personal assistants. In this project, we investigate the user experience on an AI speaker that embodies an AI assistant in a multi-user home environment. We aim to report findings of interesting experiential patterns of with-use situations and user perceptions on the AI assistant in a multi-user home environment.
The combination of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and conversational interfaces has enabled the commercialization of AI speakers in family homes. The agents in AI speakers at home provide a completely different user experience since they are shared by multiple family members. To address the differences in the user experience in a family environment, we are working on a project that codesigns the family agent. In the progress of the project, we have discovered the problematic issues of intermember privacy that the family AI agent should be aware of. In the future, the final result from this project will provide design directions for family AI agents, with consideration of the individual members’ authority and privacy.
AI assistants that use a voice user interface (VUI), such as AI speakers, have become popular in family homes. However, it is still unclear what roles the AI speaker can support within the family unit. We investigated the roles of an AI speaker as a family-shared technology. By conducting a one-week participatory user study, we discovered that family members' co-ownership toward the AI speaker was the key in the development of its family-oriented roles. Our findings showed seven domains of user expectations on these roles, and we realized that all the expectations can be represented as family cohesion. In addition, privacy awareness was emphasized regarding personal supports. Finally, we discuss a new perspective for AI speaker design and offer two suggestions: 1) leveraging human-likeness to develop its potential roles of supporting the unit of a family and 2) interpreting the home context to seamlessly connect family and personal supporting roles.