Conversational commerce: Do biased choices offered by voice assistants’ technology constrain its appropriation?

Abstract Conversational commerce, which relies on algorithm-based voice assistants, is still an emerging technology that changes how consumers shop. Based on natural language processing (NLP) technology and artificial intelligence (AI) systems, consumers can now purchase products and services online by making use of voice assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, and Apple's Siri. However, the economic literature and international organization reports have identified some problems with conversational commerce technology that may constrain its appropriation, demonstrating that algorithm-based voice assistants can lead to exclusionary conduct and nonoptimal choices for consumers. In that context, the research explores consumers’ perception of conversational commerce and product choice offers delivered by voice assistants. The paper considers how algorithm-based voice assistants can lead to perceived biased offers and identifies different strategies that could be implemented by consumers to overcome the negative side effects of algorithms and support their appropriation. The study has strong implications for policymakers and conversational commerce platform owners.