Persuasiveness of Conversational Agents for Targeted Advertising: Autism and Gen-AI Chatbots

Marketing firms are starting to leverage Generative-AI-based chatbots as a more persuasive form of advertising. This is potentially more harmful for autistic young adults with substantial support needs who tend to have lower financial literacy, be more trusting of bad actors when communicating through social technologies, and more likely to anthropomorphize objects. Thus, we investigated whether a chatbot assuming the likeness of a favorite celebrity would more greatly influence consumer preferences of this population when compared against either autistic individuals without substantial support needs or the general population. We conducted an experimental survey where participants 1) ranked their preferences of various consumer items, 2) performed intervening tasks answering several questions, 3) viewed a chatbot interaction where the chatbot exhibited opposite consumer preferences, and then 4) re-ranked their preferences for those items. We found that autistic young adults with substantial support needs were more likely to change their preferences than the sample from the general population. Moreover, they were also more likely to change their preferences than autistic young adults without substantial support needs. These findings suggest that autistic individuals with substantial support needs are more susceptible to celebrity chatbot persuasion. We discuss the risks and guardrails that need to be associated with deploying generative-AI-based chatbots for targeted advertising.