Author: anacanhoto

How Purchase Certainty Shapes Our Trust in AI Advice

AI is becoming a common part of online shopping, but are there times when we still prefer human judgement?  Research suggests that the answer depends on both the nature of the product and the customer’s certainty about what they want. Some time ago, I reviewed a paper by Fei Jin and Xiaodan Zhang examining when customers would accept … Continue reading How Purchase Certainty Shapes Our Trust in AI Advice

Chocolates vs phones: When is AI more persuasive than humans?

With growing interest in AI-based service agents, an increasing number of studies are comparing how users perceive interactions with AI versus human agents. Yaqi Chen, Haizhong Wang, Sally Rao Hill and Binglian Li examined user assessment of adverts created by a generative AI agent vs a human one. The details for this paper are: Chen, … Continue reading Chocolates vs phones: When is AI more persuasive than humans?

AI, Sales, and Strategy: Insights from the 15gifts Panel Discussion

Last month, I had the pleasure of joining executives from Verizon, GSMA, and Artefact in London for a panel discussion hosted by Humara and 15gifts, exploring the evolving role of AI agents in sales. Our conversation covered industry pressures, internal resourcing, the nuances of AI in “closed box” vs “open box” problems, and how users … Continue reading AI, Sales, and Strategy: Insights from the 15gifts Panel Discussion

Understanding (some) emotional roadblocks to AI adoption

When we consider the reasons supporting or hindering adoption of AI, there might be a tendency to focus on rational aspects, namely the trade-off between benefits such as time-savings or enhanced performance, on the one hand, and costs such as learning effort or the consequence of mistakes, on the other. But we are also emotional … Continue reading Understanding (some) emotional roadblocks to AI adoption

March 2025 round-up

March was a good month. Sure, hay fever is annoying and  it wasn’t fun to deal with a trapped nerve. But there were also many highlights such as running in nice weather, kicking off the SeNSS training series on GenAI in research with my AI literacy session, or joining a panel of AI experts, to discuss the … Continue reading March 2025 round-up

Helpful resources for generative AI newbies in academia

If you are an academic (including a PhD student) curious about the potential of generative AI (GenAI) in a university context, but not sure where to start, here are some helpful resources. About the technology Research shows that understanding GenAIs’ strengths and weaknesses is crucial to enable a critical approach to its use. So, my first set … Continue reading Helpful resources for generative AI newbies in academia

Conversations with Chat GPT: Convention over linguistic rules

While I warmly encourage everyone to get familiar with generative AI, I often suggest that they use it mostly for purposes where it doesn’t matter if the answer is correct or not. If one must use it in a context where accuracy matters, then I suggest using it only when we know the answer and can … Continue reading Conversations with Chat GPT: Convention over linguistic rules

Introduction to generative AI for PhD students (slides + video)

Earlier this month, I ran a brief “introduction to generative AI” session for PhD students and post-docs enrolled in the SeNSS/ SENSS doctoral training partnership.  Here are the slides used in the session, and the video recording. https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/introduction-to-generative-ai-for-phd-students/276734708 Introduction to generative AI for PhD students from Ana Canhoto The session drew on my socio-technical framework for … Continue reading Introduction to generative AI for PhD students (slides + video)

Why Women Must Engage with Generative AI (and How to Get Started)

Study after study after study shows that fewer women than men are using generative AI.  Image source The reasons for this AI gender gap are numerous and, to be frank, are not new. Some of the causes mentioned in the emerging literature are: Lack of exposure to generative AI in the workplace: There is still a difference in … Continue reading Why Women Must Engage with Generative AI (and How to Get Started)