{"id":221945,"date":"2026-05-28T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers-texas-am-stories\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T15:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T19:45:21","slug":"research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers-texas-am-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers-texas-am-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Research finds hotel booking chatbots can \u2018creep out\u2019 customers \u2013 Texas A&#038;M Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stories.tamu.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/28\/research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers\/\">Research finds hotel booking chatbots can \u2018creep out\u2019 customers \u2013 Texas A&#038;M Stories<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stories.tamu.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/28\/research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers\/\">https:\/\/stories.tamu.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/28\/research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-28 15:21:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"stories.tamu.edu\">stories.tamu.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Chatbot Discomfort<\/strong>: Users often feel uneasy when interacting with AI-powered chatbots on hotel booking platforms, leading to disengagement or delay in booking decisions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Primary Flaw Identified<\/strong>: Inaccuracy, particularly incorrect pricing and policy misinterpretations, triggers the strongest negative reaction among users.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Impact on User Behavior<\/strong>: The perceived inaccuracy reduces willingness to continue interacting with the chatbot by almost 38% and doubles the likelihood of delaying or abandoning booking decisions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8216;Uncanny Valley&#8217; Effect<\/strong>: Chatbots mimicking human-like speech that perform poorly create an unsettling &#8216;uncanny valley&#8217; effect, increasing discomfort due to the gap between expectation and reality.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Effective Transparency<\/strong>: Clear disclosure and transparency can mitigate discomfort, especially by acknowledging the AI&#8217;s limitations, though it may initially heighten the feeling of deception.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recommendations for Improvement<\/strong>: Researchers advocate for chatbots to start conversations with a clear AI identification and provide options for human assistance, along with upgrades in AI technology for better accuracy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dual Need for Competence and Transparency<\/strong>: For hospitality sectors to gain trust, both the competency of the AI and clear transparency in its capabilities are essential.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Research finds hotel booking chatbots can \u2018creep out\u2019 customers \u2013 Texas A&#038;M Stories https:\/\/stories.tamu.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/28\/research-finds-hotel-booking-chatbots-can-creep-out-customers\/ Publish&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/stories.tamu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260414_Taheri_Lab_MM_204-2-1024x683-1-e1779995762837.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221947,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221945\/revisions\/221947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}