The IKEA effect in human-AI collaboration: Does the effect exist for non-physical products? Part I

According to the IKEA effect, people are willing to pay more for a product they have created through their own perceived effort than they would for an off-the-shelf product. In our research, we investigated whether the IKEA effect would exist (1) if ChatGPT were also involved in creating the product and (2) if the final product is textual content. We conducted a randomized controlled trial that included all the background factors known to jointly trigger the IKEA effect. Our results show that the IKEA effect can be detected in human-AI collaboration when the product is non-physical content. We have demonstrated that participants (1) produced a superior product based on their subjective preferences and (2) would purchase it at a higher price. However, in our research, (3) the IKEA effect applied not only to the end product, but also to the instrument: members of the IKEA group were more satisfied with ChatGPT and would pay more for the application in terms of the product they created. Thus, by including all known background factors that jointly trigger the IKEA effect, we have successfully refuted previous studies that were unable to prove the IKEA effect in the field of text generation. Artificial intelligence is a technological opportunity that allows shoppers to personalize products or select and access them more quickly. The IKEA effect could be exploited in this area. Our paper contributes to the practical identification of the boundary conditions necessary to trigger the effect.