Abstract
Organisations are increasingly seeking to deploy Digital humans (DHs) to enhance personalization, automate services, and foster customer engagement. Yet, their current applications and the risks they pose remain unclear. This study conducts a scoping review of academic sources to map DH use in customer-facing service contexts, including customer service, metaverse shopping, e-commerce, and retail. We find that for organizations, the primary risks of deploying DHs stem from the negative psychological, emotional, and privacy-related impacts on individual users, which in turn undermine organizational outcomes. Based on our findings, we suggest a structured typology of DH-related risks that can guide human-centered design, practices, and organizational strategy. In doing so, we conceptualize how DH applications intersect with organizational objectives and ethically relevant concerns and offer practical guidance for mitigating risks, enhancing user trust, and enabling responsible, human-centered DH deployment in customer-facing domains.
Recommended Citation
Sohanaki, Hedie Bigham; Richter, Alexander; and Marx, Julian, "Facing the Future: Organizational Risks of Deploying
Digital Humans in Customer-Facing Contexts" (2025). ACIS 2025 Proceedings. 43.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/acis2025/43