No Responsibility: The Experience Economy, Artificial Intelligence, and the Erosion of Agency

There is an adage that the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer, and that wisdom holds true today in our hyper-competitive global market for attention and revenue generation from prospective customers. Over the last quarter century, in the broad service provider sector of leisure and recreation, the ‘experience industry’ (EI) (or ‘experience economy’) ethos has taken hold. Its adherents claim that it will lead to the best outcomes for customers and the most streamlined efficiencies for businesses. Its detractors decry that it will usurp agency and restrict the freedom of choice, diverting people from challenges that have commonly been understood as vital to growth through leisure. With the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon us, this critical commentary posits that the embrace of AI by EI providers will further subject leisure seekers to algorithmic designs of experiences once thought to be the domain of individual humans, leading to greater power in the hands of providers, more homogeneous experience outcomes, and less autonomy of those seeking leisure for personal wellbeing and social development.