Outsourcing choice: AI voice assistants as shopping surrogates

AI voice assistants have become central to consumer shopping experiences, particularly within the growing field of voice commerce. As these technologies evolve, they have increasingly assumed the role of surrogate shoppers, sometimes even replacing human intermediaries. Yet our understanding of how an AI voice assistant functions in this surrogate capacity remains limited. This study investigates the role of AI voice assistants as surrogate shoppers, using uses and gratifications theory to examine how two key attributes, namely value provision and time efficiency, shape consumer satisfaction and reuse intentions through perceived benefits. Purchase involvement is proposed as a critical boundary condition that influences how these attributes affect consumers’ perceptions. Using survey data from 395 US consumers with experience using AI voice assistants for shopping, the findings reveal that utilitarian benefits mediate the effects of value provision and time efficiency on satisfaction and reuse intentions, while social benefits mediate only the link between value provision and satisfaction. The impact of time efficiency on utilitarian benefits is stronger for high-involvement purchases, whereas the effect of value provision on utilitarian benefits is stronger for low-involvement purchases. This research extends the uses and gratifications theory, surrogate shopping theory, resource scarcity theory, and involvement theory by demonstrating their relevance to AI-enabled shopping contexts and offers practical guidance for designing more effective voice shopping interfaces and solutions.