Can AI fake a hospitable mind? Empathy, linguistic style, and the human-AI performance gap: moving beyond the feeling economy

This research examines customer perceptions of AI service providers in hospitality contexts, focusing on whether empathetic language enables AI to achieve acceptance comparable to human providers. Drawing on the Feeling Economy framework, three experimental studies show that customers perceive human providers as superior in feeling-based tasks, though AI superiority was not confirmed for analytical tasks. Empathetic service language significantly improves AI acceptance, bringing customer performance expectations to levels comparable to human providers. Furthermore, congruence between empathy type (cognitive vs. affective) and voice tone (formal vs. casual) enhances continuance intentions toward AI services. A post-hoc mediation analysis identifies performance expectancy as a key psychological mechanism underlying these effects. Overall, findings suggest that customer evaluations of AI depend not only on technological capability but also on perceived emotional authenticity. This research offers insights into how hospitality organizations can leverage emotionally expressive AI to meet evolving customer expectations in an AI-augmented service landscape.