“AI used to be a tool in the back office. The consumer wouldn’t know much of what was going on under the hood,” Wharton marketing professor Stefano Puntoni said. “The arrival of generative AI gave us this interactive capacity, and suddenly everybody has a chatbot. Not all delight.” Puntoni, who is faculty co-director of Wharton Human-AI Research, has teamed up with Thomas McKinlay, founder of the Science Says newsletter, to create The Wharton Blueprint for Effective Chatbots. Based on the latest scientific research, the blueprint offers practical solutions for increasing chatbot usage, improving consumer trust, and deciding when and how to use chatbots that are more human-like or machine-like.
