Abstract
Companies’ investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its dynamic promotion has been growing rapidly. However, such promotional activities can backfire. This research reveals that companies’ self-promotional activities of AI-based services decrease the customers' willingness to interact with AI-based (vs. human-based) services. The set of studies - Twitter text mining and experimental studies - demonstrate that self-promotion of AI-based technology has a pejorative effect on customers’ willingness to interact with such services and concurrently is perceived as bragging and exaggeration. In contrast, it has a beneficial outcome if self-promotion is done about human-related achievements. The findings suggest self-discrepancy as an underlying factor of such diversion. Lastly, the research provides suggestions to companies on how to diminish customers’ resistance to AI-based services using thinking (vs. feeling) skills.