Do consumers trust the Bot? A study of consumer trust in conversational AI Systems

Conversational AI systems such as chatbots and virtual assistants have taken customer interaction by storm. Businesses can integrate these customisable chatbots into various customer service channels, including messaging apps, social media platforms, and live chat. From Amazon's chatbot, which replaces the human aspect of customer service, to AI-powered refrigerators that create recipes, these technologies promise efficiency and scalability. However, they raise an important question: Do consumers trust these bots? This review paper critically examines existing academic literature on consumer trust in Conversational AI systems, focusing on how trust is formed, maintained, and sometimes eroded during human-AI interactions. The study adopts a literature survey approach, drawing from peer-reviewed research across marketing, psychology, and human-computer interaction. It identifies key trust factors such as perceived competence, emotional intelligence, transparency, and personalisation. Despite growing interest in the field, research still has some important gaps. There is a limited understanding of how trust develops over time; little attention is paid to how trust can be repaired after things go wrong, and very few studies look at cultural differences in how people relate to AI. This review stresses the need to design Conversational AI systems that are efficient, trustworthy, human-centred, and ethically responsible.