The Gamified Voice AI Agents: Enhancing User Engagement and Interaction Through Playful Design
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This research examines the design of a Voice AI agent enhanced with gamification elements such as points, rewards, challenges, storytelling, and personalization to increase user engagement and satisfaction. Two hypotheses guided the study: (H1) users of gamified Voice AI systems demonstrate higher engagement and motivation than those using non-gamified systems; (H2) demographic factors, particularly age and prior experience, influence preferences for gamification features. Experimental testing and user feedback showed that the most frequent interactions involved game-based activities, childlike conversations, and psychology-related queries, with consistently high satisfaction and predominantly positive or curious sentiments. These findings support both hypotheses, highlighting the motivational benefits of gamification and the moderating role of user characteristics. Future work should investigate how gamification shapes long-term engagement, how demographics moderate playful feature effectiveness across contexts, and which combinations of rewards, personalization, and social presence deliver sustainable improvements in satisfaction and retention.
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