A study analyzing how ChatGPT’s AI capabilities and humanlike personality affect office workers’ use of knowledge, satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) has been published in Scientific Reports (SCIE), an international journal from Nature Portfolio. The research was conducted jointly by researchers at the HJ Institute of Technology and Management (HJITM) and Professor Do-Hyung Park of the Graduate School of Business IT at Kookmin University, who served as corresponding author.

The researchers recruited 347 office workers who use ChatGPT through stratified random sampling and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling. They examined whether ChatGPT’s continuous system updates, its ability to remember conversational context, and its ability to communicate across languages without barriers lead through knowledge acquisition and application to practical value, satisfaction and word of mouth, and what role its humanlike personality plays. All 15 hypotheses were supported.

The analysis showed that system updates had the largest effect on knowledge acquisition (β=0.410) and knowledge application (β=0.422). Memory (β=0.189, 0.255) and multilingual ability (β=0.181, 0.194) also significantly increased knowledge acquisition and application. Knowledge acquisition and application in turn led to practical value (β=0.347, 0.330) and satisfaction (β=0.230, 0.239), and ChatGPT’s humanlike personality also raised practical value (β=0.124) and satisfaction (β=0.160).

The factor with the strongest effect on word of mouth was practical value (β=0.525). Satisfaction also increased word of mouth (β=0.388), but its effect was smaller than that of practical value. The interpretation is that office workers recommend ChatGPT to colleagues not simply because they are satisfied, but because they have experienced its usefulness in actually helping with their work. Among the control variables, age had a significant effect on word of mouth.

The study is significant in empirically demonstrating the pathway by which the technical capabilities of generative AI lead, via knowledge use and value perception, to diffusion within organizations. It suggests that when adopting generative AI, companies should first build use cases that can be applied directly to work if they hope to see voluntary diffusion among employees.

HJITM continues to conduct research on the diffusion and use of generative AI within organizations.