Does age matter? The impact of an AI’s alleged age on perceived competence and trust

Artificial intelligence (AI) technology rapidly advanced in recent years, revolutionizing various domains, including marketing and retail. As more and more online retail companies employ AI in technological solutions like website design, it is crucial to understand how people perceive and evaluate AI technology in this context. This study examined whether the year of development of an AI (2017 vs. 2023) that had allegedly created the website of an online retail company influences the perceived competence and trustworthiness of the AI as well as the perception of the websites’ quality. Our online experiment (N = 182) revealed significantly higher competence ratings for the younger than for the older AI. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no evidence that participants perceived the older AI as more trustworthy. Instead, participants indicated the younger AI to be slightly more trustworthy. We discuss the results considering implications of recent advancements in AI for the retail sector and highlight how the findings can inform future research and companies on how to implement AI technology in online retail.