Identity Disclosure and Anthropomorphism in Voice Chatbot Design: A Field Experiment.

This article investigates the impact of voice chatbot design features—specifically chatbot identity disclosure and anthropomorphism—on operational performance in freight dispatching. Conducted as a randomized field experiment with 11,000 truck drivers on YunYou Freight, a major Chinese truck-sharing platform, the study finds that disclosing a chatbot’s identity reduces driver response rates by about 11%. Conversely, humanizing the chatbot through anthropomorphic features such as interjections and filler words significantly increases response probability, conversation length, and order acceptance intention, with improvements ranging from approximately 5.6% to 26.9%. Importantly, anthropomorphism mitigates the negative effects of identity disclosure, likely by enhancing trust and encouraging drivers to share more information during interactions. These findings offer practical guidance for businesses deploying voice chatbots amid regulatory requirements for transparency and contribute empirical evidence on how human-like traits in AI can improve user engagement and operational outcomes.