Should an AI Assistant Change Its Appearance? Exploring Representation Strategies Across Everyday Contexts

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence (AI) assistants support an expanding range of activities. Research shows that preferences for AI assistant representations vary across tasks and that appearance could shape interaction experiences. As AI and augmented reality (AR) glasses enable assistants to accompany users across spaces and activities, should their representations change across contexts or remain consistent? We conducted focus groups, which revealed varied preferences across contexts shaped by privacy, attention, social cues, task suitability, and personal taste, and benefits of both changing and keeping appearance consistent across contexts. We then used virtual reality in an exploratory user study to simulate future everyday AR interactions. Participants experienced two strategies: selecting one representation for all scenarios, and selecting representations separately for each scenario. Those favouring consistency valued familiarity and reduced adjustment, whereas those favouring context-specific representations prioritised situational suitability. Participants favouring consistency tended to express a stronger preference than those favouring context-specific representations.