Consumers Prefer AI That Is Not Automated
In the past few years, tech companies have spent trillions of dollars developing AI. Consumers have been much less willing to spend money on AI plans though.
One of the most expensive AI features is agent mode. Agent mode allows AI tools to act autonomously without step-by-step guidance from users. Instead of just answering a single prompt in a chat, agent mode breaks an objective into tasks, executes those tasks, checks the output, and provides a response when it is done.
Such agents require a huge amount of computing resources. Given the resources involved, AI companies should know what the demand is for agent mode. Is agent mode a feature consumers are interested in? Are they willing to pay extra for it?
Empirical Intelligence and ND Research partnered on a choice-based conjoint survey to test how consumers react to various AI plan features, including agent mode.
Study Design
We recruited a representative sample of 314 U.S. consumer respondents through online panels. They went through 12 choice tasks where they were asked to select one out of three AI plans. They could also select none of them. They were told these AI plans were for their personal use and that they would have to pay for them themselves.
The conjoint included a variety of features and prices. For agent mode, there were two options:
- No autonomous actions: the AI tool can make suggestions but it never acts on its own
- Executes tasks automatically: the AI tool can carry tasks out on your behalf after you set rules
Key Finding: Consumers Don’t Like Autonomous AI
The results were clear: general consumers strongly dislike agent mode.
Using our statistical model, we created a market simulator. We found that the preference share for ChatGPT Go, a popular entry-level paid AI plan, declines by 12% relative to its baseline when we add autonomous actions.
We were also able to use the market simulator to calculate willingness-to-pay for agent mode. We found that consumers would be willing to spend less on the ChatGPT Go plan if it included agent mode:
- The price would have to drop to $7/month to keep demand for the plan at the same level (current price is $8/month).
- That means agent mode has a negative valuation of -$1.00 among general consumers.
Strategic Takeaway
Agent mode is not popular with general consumers.
There likely are specific segments of the market, more specifically business and professional users, who do value autonomous AI. However, for the overall consumer population, agent mode is a net negative.
Companies that are selling AI plans should keep this in mind. Because agent mode is such an expensive feature, companies that are selling AI plans should probably keep autonomous actions out of general consumer plans and save them for plans directed at segments of the market, notably professional and business users, who value the feature.