Does Social Presence Increase Perceived Competence?

Conversational agents (CA) have drawn increasing interest from HCI research. They become popular in different aspects of our lives, for example, the form chatbots as primary point contact when interacting with an insurance company online. Additionally, CA find their way into collaborative settings education, at work, or financial advisory. Researchers and practitioners are searching ways to enhance customer's experience service encounters by deploying CA. Since competence is important treat a advisor, they only accept interaction clients if it does not harm impression on client. However, we do know how social presence affects this perceived competence. We explore evaluating three prototypes presences. For this, conducted video-based online survey. In contrast prior studies focusing single human-computer interaction, study explores dyadic setting two humans one First, results support Computers-Are-Social-Actors paradigm strong was more competent than other designs. Second, data show positive correlation between CA's advisor's This implies impact encounter advisor can be seen team.