AI anchors from a uses and gratifications perspective
An exploratory study of past, present, and future trends
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17818162 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yongbo Niu (Universiti Putra Malaysia, corresponding author), Sharifah Sofiah Syed Zainudin (0000-0002-4589-6176, Universiti Putra Malaysia), Syafila Binti Kamarudin (Universiti Putra Malaysia) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | e202624-e202624 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1986-3497 • E-ISSN: 1986-3497 |
| Publisher | Bastas Publications (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.30935/ojcmt/18478 |
| OpenAlex | W7155683997 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
Artificial intelligence (AI) anchors are increasingly deployed in journalism, entertainment, and education, reshaping how audiences consume media content. Early systems such as Ananova demonstrated the feasibility of virtual presenters but lacked natural prosody and expressiveness. Recent innovations, exemplified by Xinhua’s AI anchor and Microsoft Xiaoice, leverage deep learning-based speech synthesis and multimodal design to achieve greater naturalness, personalization, and interactivity. Drawing on the uses and gratifications (U&G) framework, this study investigates how AI anchors meet cognitive, affective, and trust-related needs in the Chinese context. This study combines acoustic analyses of pitch, formants and intensity with 29 semi-structured interviews, providing complementary insights at both the technical and interpretive levels. Results show that technological refinements enhance clarity and efficiency, but trust is the key mediator that enables functional gratifications to translate into emotional engagement. Participants valued efficiency and multilingual accessibility while expressing concerns about authenticity, credibility, and ethics. This research contributes theoretically by extending U&G to AI-mediated communication and empirically by combining technical and qualitative evidence to analyze user perceptions. Practically, the findings highlight opportunities for deploying AI anchors in routine news, education, and commercial contexts, while underscoring the continued role of human anchors in politically sensitive or emotionally rich communication. These insights add to recent debates on automated journalism and AI-mediated interaction (Jang et al., 2022; Wölker & Powell, 2021). Future research could expand these findings by conducting cross-cultural comparisons, testing the mediating role of trust in experimental settings, and exploring how emerging acoustic and multimodal technologies further shape audience acceptance
Adaptability · CLARITY · Exploratory research · Perception · Prosody · Qualitative research · AI in Service Interactions · Communication in Education and Healthcare · Emotion and Mood Recognition
Control Methods Used in a Study of the Vowels
Knowledge of automated journalism moderates evaluations of algorithmically generated news
At the Heart of It All
Rise of Machine Agency
Wired for Speech
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Naturalistic inquiry
Algorithms in the newsroom? News readers’ perceived credibility and selection of automated journalism
Uses and Gratifications Research
Data Colonialism
How Many Interviews Are Enough
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |