The Teammate Divide: How Humans Approach Teamwork Differently with Human and AI Teammates

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies begin to become more fundamental to society, their design and integration as teammates that work alongside humans will become commonplace. Recently, research into these human-AI teams has shown that the perceptions humans form of the capabilities and goals of their AI and human teammates differ. However, while humans perceive their teammates differently, it is still unclear whether these perceptual differences extend to the actual teamwork humans have with their teammates. To address this gap, this article reports on a mixed-methods research study of 32 human-AI teams with 2 human teammates and 1 AI teammate. Human and AI teammates occupied similar roles and were tasked with completing a team task in an esports environment. Based on this team task, participants rated the quality of teamwork they experienced with their human and AI teammate, and an interview was conducted to identify why these perceptions may have developed during the team task. Quantitative results show that when working with both another human and an AI teammate, participants perceived a stronger level of teamwork (i.e., interdependence, information certainty, and mutual dependence) and less conflict with their other human teammate compared to their AI teammate. Additionally, qualitative insights highlight that these perceptual differences were formed due to participants having greater expectations for their AI teammates, which may not have been met, and finding it easier to form a strong mental model of their human teammate compared to their AI teammate. Based on these results, this article discusses the potential downstream impacts that teamwork differences could have on human-AI teams and how to address the root causes of these differences to improve team effectiveness.