Department of Management Organisation, work, leadership and society event Recognition Lost: How AI-Generated Summaries Discourage Review Writing

Many platforms deploy AI to offer readers qualitative summaries of online reviews. By synthesizing different consumer perspectives into a brief synopsis, AI-generated summaries (AIGS) make the task of navigating a large volume of reviews easier and provide a service that appears to be popular with both marketers and readers. Taking the perspective of review writers, we document in four preregistered experiments an overlooked negative effect of AIGS. Drawing on Social Recognition Theory, we show that in the presence of AIGS, writers anticipate their reviews will receive less recognition, leading to a deterioration in review writing (i.e. less likely to leave a review, less writing effort). These effects are attenuated when external incentives for reviewing are offered. The current research offers timely insights into understanding a novel downside of AIGS and provides managerial insights regarding online review generation and information management for platforms.

After the paper (20+10 minute talk/discussion) we will have a discussion about AI and the world we work and live in. This is a participatory debate, to learn, discuss, and work through it all.