Acceptance, Usability, and Emotions- An Extension of the UTAUT Designed for AI Virtual Assistants in the Context of Housing Modernization

The integration of AI virtual assistants (AIVAs) into daily life raises critical questions about acceptance, usability, and emotional reactions. This paper explores these constructs within the context of the German state-funded KIMM project, which investigates the use of AIVAs to support the modernization of rental housing stock. To better understand users’ interactions with AIVAs, we propose an extension of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), incorporating usability, valence, and arousal as aspects of technology acceptance. To validate our proposed model, termed Usability-Valence-Arousal-UTAUT (UVA-UTAUT), we present a study design that combines explicit measures of usability and acceptance with implicit emotion recognition techniques. The findings are expected to contribute to the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Affective Computing, and Psychology by offering a deeper understanding of how emotional states and usability influence the acceptance of AIVAs. Further exploration of the model is encouraged and future research directions are outlined.