Examining the effects of IT identity and trust in human-AI hybrids in virtual teams

Organisations have increased reliance on virtual teams as significant performance contributors in the post-pandemic workforce. Thus, the technologies that support virtual teamwork have similarly increased and played an important role in enabling human-AI hybrids to combine the strengths of each, thereby positively impacting team performance. In this research, human-AI hybrids represent the teaming of humans and AI through an intelligent assistant embedded in team collaboration software executing knowledge sharing tasks leading to the application of knowledge. This increasing combination of human-AI hybrids for collaboration additionally presents opportunities for IT identity formation where the human incorporates AI capabilities as a sense of self. Team performance depends on knowledge sharing and application, which is more difficult among virtual team members due to geographical, temporal, and cultural barriers. This research examines the relationships between virtual team members and intelligent assistants through IT identity to understand influences on trust, knowledge sharing, knowledge application, and social identity. Results support the positive influence of IT identity on knowledge application as mediated through trust in an intelligent assistant and knowledge sharing. A significant contribution is that increased knowledge application leads to increased social identity. These findings are essential for improving human-AI hybrid relationships.