Why consumers sometimes prefer chatbots for sensitive purchases?

• When it comes to privacy-laden or slightly embarrassing purchases, consumers want to know they’re dealing with an automated agent.
• Research shows that what shoppers need isn’t a friend or a silky-voiced AI—they need a straightforward, reliably robotic chatbot to shield them from awkwardness and scrutiny.

Consumers these days are growing frustrated with chatbots—a sentiment anyone who’s been stuck in an endless loop with one can probably relate to!

But new research from the University of Notre Dame reveals an interesting exception: when it comes to “embarrassing” purchases, people actually want those clunky chatbots on their side, even if they’re shopping from the comfort of their own home.

Picture yourself buying a product you’d rather not talk about, like acne cream or diarrhea medication.

According to Jianna Jin, assistant professor of marketing at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and her co-authors Jesse Walker and Rebecca Walker Reczek from Ohio State University, the awkwardness of these situations makes consumers lean toward non-human help.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, dived into how the clear identity of a service agent—whether obviously a chatbot or ambiguous—affects shoppers’ willingness to engage.

Across seven experiments and more than 6,000 participants, Jin’s team discovered that when the product is sensitive, like hemorrhoid cream, people are far more likely to opt for a store using a clearly non-human chatbot.

In one telling experiment, over 80 per cent of participants preferred a chatbot pharmacist when seeking diarrhea medicine, but not when the product in question was a neutral one like hay fever medication.

Identity matters: Ambiguity can backfire

The researchers didn’t stop with medical items—they even tested dating app scenarios, where users are asked personal questions. Here, too, respondents felt more comfortable with a plainly mechanical chatbot, particularly during sensitive conversations.

However, if a chatbot was disguised to look and sound “human,” people became suspicious, worried someone was watching or judging, and tended to back away from the interaction altogether.

Jin puts it well: “Give consumers a chatbot that’s undeniably a robot, and those self-presentation concerns fade away—there’s no sense of being judged. But make it look vaguely human and, paradoxically, you reintroduce social anxiety.”

Designing chatbots for awkward situations

For brands, these findings are more than academic. They paint a clear picture: when it comes to privacy-laden or slightly embarrassing purchases, consumers want to know they’re dealing with an automated agent.

They prefer chatbots that look and sound like machines—not ones wearing a “human mask.” In these scenarios, shoppers are even more willing to share personal information, engage with brands, and select stores that prominently feature chatbot support.

The insight goes beyond just buying ointment at the pharmacy. Industries like car leasing—where customers may face stereotype-based judgment—could strategically use obviously non-human chatbots to make their clients feel safer.

The message for businesses? Sometimes, what shoppers need isn’t a friend or a silky-voiced AI—they need a straightforward, reliably robotic chatbot to shield them from awkwardness and scrutiny.

So, while the future of customer service might not be all sunshine and cyborgs, there’s a powerful space for the chatbot—just, please, let it look and act unmistakably like a machine.