Business Perspectives on AI: The Human Factor in Technology Evaluation

As businesses rush to adopt AI, they discover an unexpected truth: even the most rational enterprise buyers aren’t making purely rational decisions. Their subconscious requirements extend far beyond conventional evaluation standards.

Let’s consider a recent experience. During a project with a fashion brand in November 2024, I was introduced to an AI assistant named Nora, a charming digital interaction displayed on a sleek kiosk. When evaluating her capabilities, my client’s first concern was not technical performance but personality. They asked, ‘Why doesn’t she have her own personality? I asked her favorite handbag, and she didn’t give me one!’

Changing How We Evaluate Technology

It’s fascinating how quickly we forget that these avatars are not human. Rather than worrying about AI blurring the lines between humans and machines, businesses face a more pressing challenge: a fundamental shift in how they evaluate technology.

As software starts to mimic human behaviors, users begin judging it by human standards, a phenomenon known as anthropomorphism. Decision-makers, still human at their core, often allow unconscious perceptions to shape their evaluations.

In essence, companies entering AI contracts are often entering an implicit ’emotional contract,’ one that they might not even be consciously aware of.

Getting the ‘AI Baby’ Perfect?

Every software product carries some emotional element, but it becomes more pronounced when it resembles a real human. These unconscious reactions can significantly impact how employees and customers interact with AI. For instance, in my experience:

One client worried about an avatar’s smile, stating, ‘The mouth shows a lot of teeth — it’s unsettling.’ This aligns with the uncanny valley effect where nearly human-like features provoke discomfort.
Another saw beauty in a less functional AI agent due to the aesthetic-usability effect, implying attractiveness may outweigh performance issues.
A meticulous business owner delayed their project launch, insisting, ‘We need to get our AI baby perfect,’ reflecting a desire to project their ideal self onto the AI, aiming for perfection.

What Matters Most to Your Business?

To remain competitive, businesses need to consider these hidden emotional contracts. Establish a testing process that identifies priorities, allowing companies to deprioritize minor details regardless of their emotional weight. With few established playbooks available in this new sector, being a first mover could pay dividends.

For instance, testing the AI avatar’s personality revealed that most users didn’t notice the differences between versions, indicating that a ‘good enough’ point exists beyond the quest for perfection.

Hiring team members or consultants with a psychology background may aid in recognizing these patterns. As these emotional responses are not isolated, they are consistent with researched psychological effects in human interactions.

Your relationship with tech vendors must evolve. They should function as partners in this journey, encouraging regular discussions that leverage your insights from testing, enhancing product offerings in the future.

We stand at the forefront of defining human-AI interactions. Leaders willing to embrace emotional contracts and establish processes for navigating ambiguity will not only survive but thrive in this transformed landscape.

Joy Liu has led enterprise products at various AI startups and cloud initiatives at Microsoft.

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