The Impact of Virtual-Real Service Connection on Public Expectation Confirmation in Government Virtual Agents

Government virtual agents are increasingly used in digital government services to facilitate citizen access and interaction. A key challenge, however, is whether AI-mediated services meet citizens’ expectations. Drawing on expectation confirmation theory, this study examines how virtual-real service connection influences public expectation confirmation and investigates the mediating role of AI-driven civic interaction. Survey data were collected from 300 residents in Wuxi, China, who had used the government service digital human “Fubao.” Regression-based mediation analysis was employed to test the proposed relationships. The results show that virtual-real service connection has a significant positive effect on expectation confirmation and that AI-driven civic interaction partially mediates this relationship. These findings highlight the importance of integrating institutional service linkage and interaction quality in the design of AI-enabled government services and provide practical implications for improving expectation confirmation.