The Personalization Puzzle - A case-study of employees' perceptions of the factors influencing the adoption of AI for personalization in the Swedish banking industry

Sammanfattning

Recent technological advancements have significantly propelled banks into a digital era, intensifying the pressure to discover alternative solutions for maintaining customer relationships in an increasingly digital landscape. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a critical tool for achieving this, enabling banks to deliver personalized products and services on an unprecedented scale. While prior research emphasizes the role of AI for personalization in banking and the advantages it can bring in terms of enhanced customer experiences, research on how banks can effectively adopt AI for personalization remains limited. Therefore, this study aims to address this gap by exploring what factors bank employees perceive to influence the adoption of AI for personalization, as well as how and why these factors are perceived to impact this adoption. Utilizing a qualitative, single-case study approach, the research draws on semi-structured interviews with 16 employees from the case bank and four AI experts. The findings of this study reveals that various factors are perceived to influence two different phases of the adoption process, exerting their influence through technological-, organizational-, and environmental context factors. The findings further suggest that the environmental context factors can be understood through the influence of institutional forces present in the environment, driven by the bank's pursuit to maintain legitimacy. The study contributes theoretically by identifying and developing an understanding for the unique factors influencing the adoption of AI for the specific purpose of personalization in the banking industry. Further, the study extends the theoretical understanding by providing a nuanced understanding of the factors influencing AI adoption, by integrating the TOE framework with Institutional Theory. Practically, the study offers guidance for bank managers attempting to adopt AI for personalization into their organizations.