Oulu Business School launches project on biomarketing and transformative bot-human companionships
The project focuses on developing biomarketing, as an emerging field that uses multimodal biological measurements—such as skin conductivity, heart rate variability, and eye movement analysis—to reveal unconscious processes in marketing interactions. The team aims to develop new biomarketing tools to better understand the role of physiological and emotional reactions in explaining wellbeing.
“Our goal is to create a novel biomarketing approach to uncover factors that enhance wellbeing in human-bot interactions and companionships,” the project PI Eeva-Liisa Oikarinen explains.
The interdisciplinary team includes doctoral students Saba Orfi and Mohsin Rehman, with support from Professors Saila Saraniemi (Oulu Business School) and Tapio Seppänen (Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering). International collaboration is a key element of the project, involving experts such as Professor Magnus Söderlund from the Stockholm School of Economics and Professor Richard Bagozzi from the University of Michigan, USA.
The research will explore various forms of transformative bot companionship, including interactions with tools like OuluBot, ChatGPT, and Replika. The team will also develop innovative multimodal tools tailored for specific groups, such as young adults and elderly people experiencing loneliness.
The ambitious project will use diverse research methods, including experiments in the LeaF interaction laboratory, international CIT survey data, longitudinal studies, and qualitative interviews.
“AI companions, such as chatbots and virtual friends, hold significant societal potential. They challenge the uniqueness of human relationships while promising to reduce loneliness and improve wellbeing. However, we lack sufficient knowledge about these wellbeing effects,” Oikarinen says.
The research results could benefit public healthcare services as well as businesses developing AI-based solutions for wellbeing and health.
The project received a grant of €100,000 from the Foundation for Economic Education.