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alex.mari@business.uzh.ch
Alex Mari is a Research Associate, PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow at the chair for marketing and market research, University of Zurich. He studies the adoption of AI-based voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home for marketing (voice marketing) and their effect on shopping behavior (voice commerce).
Among others, Alex worked as a global director of digital marketing and e-commerce (Sonova), brand manager (Procter & Gamble) and startup CEO (Fennex). In over ten international coaching projects, he advised executives in tech startups and corporations such as GlaxoSmithKline, Chalhoub and Safilo.
He teaches digital marketing and personal branding at UZH and private business schools. Alex regularly serves as a guest speaker on AI for marketing and digital strategy in leading business schools such as SDA Bocconi and Säid Business School.
Alex supports the Marketing Group Zurich, a joint research initiative of three UZH and ETH Zurich marketing chairs.
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2022 Stanley C. Hollander Award for Best Retailing Paper by the Academy of Marketing Science. News |
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Start of the thesis: February 2023.
1. Voice assistant and social influence in the decision-making process Individual and collective decisions are increasingly affected by digital consumer technologies powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Among these, in-home voice assistants (VAs) such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home is physically placed at the core of a consumer's domestic life, allowing for repeated, ongoing interactions that fulfill functional and social needs. While performing complex tasks with consumers, VAs become a more human-like exchange partner. In this context, the relationship between humans and VAs activates emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions usually found in human-to-human relationships. If people treat technological artifacts not only as a medium but also as a social actor, what happens when other humans are involved in the decision-making process? The objective of this thesis is to examine how the outcome of a decision-making process enabled by VAs differs when carried out by a single individual rather than with the involvement of other household members. Furthermore, this thesis explores how the effect changes when the VA is capable or not of agentic communication increasing the consumer's sense of human warmth and sociability.
The unit of analysis: consumer; methodology: descriptive and experimental research methods; type of work: theoretical and empirical.
2. Adoption of AI-based voice assistants in consumer goods companies The rapid adoption of AI-based voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home introduces consumer heuristics likely to affect marketing practices. Voice-based technologies open up a full set of communication possibilities for managers, from custom voice apps to actionable audio ads. At the same time, the simultaneous growth of several voice platforms, the explosion of provider-specific business services, and the fast-changing supplier ecosystem produce mixed feelings in incumbent firms. Individual and collective sense-making guide the managerial decision on ‘if’ and ‘how’ to implement voice-based marketing initiatives. These strategic responses to the diffusion of AI-based voice assistants are likely to be affected by the manager’s beliefs and emotions toward the technology and its suppliers (Amazon, Google, Apple). This thesis explores managers’ perceptions and decisions toward adopting AI-based voice assistants in consumer-facing functions (marketing, sales, and service). This research aims at enabling managers to make unbiased strategic decisions in the context of consumer-oriented AI technologies.
The unit of analysis: manager; methodology: qualitative research methods; type of work: theoretical and empirical. |
