My phone assistant should know I am an Indian: influencing factors for adoption of assistive agents

Abstract

Intelligent assistants are an emerging form of interface in digital devices. They are disrupting this space through conversations which have socio-cultural dimensions. However, what is not known are people's perceptions and expectations from these assistants. In this paper, we studied the Indian context through guided interviews and situational observations. The user-agent interaction begins with communication of intent. We found that Indians take a lot of time to articulate intent and also prefer conversing through type. Personalization and context are other two critical components, where latter gives deeper meaning to user intent and is culture specific. E.g. in India; security, shared public spaces and infrastructure availability are of higher importance as compared to the west. The need for user-profile building is identified as a key factor in adoption of assistive agents in India. We discuss influencing factors that will help build these user-profiles for Indian scenarios.