Technology Affordance, Trust and Continuance Intention in Virtual Personal Assistants: Differences between High and Low Frequency Users

With the growing proliferation of virtual personal assistants (VPAs) into our daily life, their flexible functions assist users with diverse tasks achievement. While how these functions of VPAs perceived by users and affect user behaviors remain an under-investigated research question. Drawing upon technology affordance perspective, this study investigates the influences of three technology affordances, namely anthropomorphism affordance, interactivity affordance, and personalization affordance, on user’s trust and continuance intention in VPAs. We conduct an empirical study and use structural equation modelling approach to test our theoretical model. We find that the three technology affordances exhibit significant influences on continuance intention, through the mediation effect of trust. Additionally, usage frequency significantly moderates the effects of technology affordances on user trust, as well as the relationship between trust and continuance intention. Implications and conclusions are discussed in the final section.