Understanding the spillover effect of personal AI use on service innovation: the role of psychological capital and conscientiousness

Purpose As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life and workplace operations, research has begun to document numerous organizational benefits, including enhanced efficiency and productivity. However, employees’ personal experiences with AI and how these experiences spill over into the work domain remain underexplored. Using sociomateriality as a sensitizing lens, we propose and test a sequential process in which personal AI use increases work-related AI use, further enhancing employees’ psychological capital, ultimately improving their service innovation performance. We further examine conscientiousness as an important boundary condition that moderates this pathway. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 uses a three-wave survey of 438 service employees and employs structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized serial mediation. Study 2 extends this investigation by examining within-person dynamics using a daily experience sampling design with 121 participants and testing the moderating role of conscientiousness. Findings Across both studies, personal AI use positively predicts employees’ work-related AI use, which in turn increases their psychological capital and subsequently service innovation performance. Moreover, employees lower in conscientiousness benefit more from AI use. Originality/value This paper contributes to our understanding of personal AI use’s spillover effect in the work domain, suggesting AI use may introduce psychological affordances that were less evident in earlier technologies. Our research demonstrates that individual personality differences can influence the effectiveness of human–AI collaboration.