FROM PIXELS TO PROFITS: CEO’S DIGITAL HUMAN AND THE ART TO PERSUADE INVESTORS

Digital human (DH) has been an emerging topic of interest to scholarly work on stakeholder reactions in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). However, existing studies examining the relationship between DH’s appearance anthropomorphism and stakeholder responses have come to inconsistent results. To explore this inconsistency, we focus on CEO’s DH in the context of disclosing firm financial information and draw upon transportation theory to investigate the impact of their appearance anthropomorphism on investors’ responses through both emotional and cognitive processes. Moreover, we also consider the moderating effect of content concreteness/abstractness when disclosing financial information. An experimental study using Tobbi eye tracking technology reveals the power of CEOs’ DH. Specifically, investors will experience less cognitive load, exhibit more positive emotions, and thus show more willingness to invest when interacting with CEOs’ DH possessing high human-like appearance. Besides, we find that content concreteness of financial information will strengthen the positive relationship between CEO’s DH appearance anthropomorphism and investors’ willingness to invest. These findings provide important theoretical and practical insights into the literature on DH, and the communication channel between CEOs and stakeholders.