Families engage more with the Jibo social robot than with smart speakers, MIT study finds

Researchers in Cynthia Breazeal's group at MIT ran three studies in which 34 families, 92 people aged four to 69, tried commercial voice interfaces including Jibo, Amazon Echo devices and Google Home. Participants interacted most with Jibo and rated it as more trustworthy, competent, companion-like and emotionally engaging, and they smiled, laughed and talked with each other more around it. Changing the wake word to emphasise the company brand lowered ratings, and Jibo's expressive movement drew more engagement than mechanical motion. The authors noted small samples and single sessions, but the work suggests social embodiment shapes how families relate to conversational agents.

Source: Frontiers in Robotics and AI