This study aims to empirically examine the effects of interactivity in conversational AI services on users' continuance intention. In particular, it investigates how flow experience and emotional intimacy,formed during interactions with conversational...
This study aims to empirically examine the effects of interactivity in conversational AI services on users' continuance intention. In particular, it investigates how flow experience and emotional intimacy,formed during interactions with conversational AI, mediate the relationship between interactivity and continuance intention, and seeks to provide implications for the effective design of such services.- 198 Interactivity was conceptualized as comprising controllability,
responsiveness, and two-way communication. Flow experience was operationalized through cognitive absorption and enjoyment, while emotional intimacy was defined as the affective bond between users and AI. Both were set as parallel mediators to examine their respective mediating roles in the relationship between interactivity and continuance intention. By doing so, this study extends prior research that has predominantly focused on functional usefulness or technology acceptance, and incorporates both experiential and relational responses in the context of conversational AI usage.
Data were collected from 306 users with prior experience using conversational AI services. The analysis was conducted using SPSS 27.0, AMOS 21.0, and PROCESS macro. The results indicate that among the sub-dimensions of interactivity, responsiveness and two-way communication have significant effects on continuance intention, whereas controllability does not show a significant direct effect. The parallel mediation analysis revealed that cognitive absorption, enjoyment, and emotional intimacy each significantly mediated the relationship between interactivity and continuance intention. Notably, enjoyment emerged as the most consistent and influential mediator across all sub-dimensions of interactivity.
These findings suggest that continuance intention toward conversational AI services is not solely determined by technical performance or functional utility, but is strongly reinforced by- 199 affective experiences such as enjoyment during interaction. This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of
experiential and relational mechanisms in AI usage and provides practical implications by suggesting that enhancing two-way communication and designing enjoyable interaction experiences are critical strategies for promoting sustained use of conversational AI services.