TY - JOUR
T1 - Perceptions and expectations of an artificially intelligent physical activity digital assistant — A focus group study
AU - Vandelanotte, Corneel
AU - Hodgetts, Danya
AU - Peris, D. L.I.H.K.
AU - Karki, Ashmita
AU - Maher, Carol
AU - Imam, Tasadduq
AU - Rashid, Mamunur
AU - To, Quyen
AU - Trost, Stewart
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (APP2012704), the Australian Research Council (FT210100234) and the National Heart Foundation of Australia (VG105816).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Association of Applied Psychology.
PY - 2024/11
Y1 - 2024/11
N2 - Artificially intelligent physical activity digital assistants that use the full spectrum of machine learning capabilities have not yet been developed and examined. This study aimed to explore potential users' perceptions and expectations of using such a digital assistant. Six 90-min online focus group meetings (n = 45 adults) were conducted. Meetings were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Participants embraced the idea of a ‘digital assistant’ providing physical activity support. Participants indicated they would like to receive notifications from the digital assistant, but did not agree on the number, timing, tone and content of notifications. Likewise, they indicated that the digital assistant's personality and appearance should be customisable. Participants understood the need to provide information to the digital assistant to allow for personalisation, but varied greatly in the extent of information that they were willing to provide. Privacy issues aside, participants embraced the idea of using artificial intelligence or machine learning in return for a more functional and personal digital assistant. In sum, participants were ready for an artificially intelligent physical activity digital assistant but emphasised a need to personalise or customise nearly every feature of the application. This poses challenges in terms of cost and complexity of developing the application.
AB - Artificially intelligent physical activity digital assistants that use the full spectrum of machine learning capabilities have not yet been developed and examined. This study aimed to explore potential users' perceptions and expectations of using such a digital assistant. Six 90-min online focus group meetings (n = 45 adults) were conducted. Meetings were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Participants embraced the idea of a ‘digital assistant’ providing physical activity support. Participants indicated they would like to receive notifications from the digital assistant, but did not agree on the number, timing, tone and content of notifications. Likewise, they indicated that the digital assistant's personality and appearance should be customisable. Participants understood the need to provide information to the digital assistant to allow for personalisation, but varied greatly in the extent of information that they were willing to provide. Privacy issues aside, participants embraced the idea of using artificial intelligence or machine learning in return for a more functional and personal digital assistant. In sum, participants were ready for an artificially intelligent physical activity digital assistant but emphasised a need to personalise or customise nearly every feature of the application. This poses challenges in terms of cost and complexity of developing the application.
KW - artificial intelligence
KW - chatbot
KW - conversational agent
KW - health behaviour change intervention
KW - large language model
KW - machine learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85203676493&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/aphw.12594
DO - 10.1111/aphw.12594
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 39268568
AN - SCOPUS:85203676493
SN - 1758-0846
VL - 16
SP - 2362
EP - 2380
JO - Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being
JF - Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being
IS - 4
ER -