The paper “How Enterprise Conversational Agents Impact Brand Identity” by David Sonnabend, Philipp Reinhard, Angelia Dittmar, Mahei Li, and Jan Marco Leimeister has been published in the journal *Electronic Markets *.

The journal *Electronic Markets* publishes scholarly articles at the intersection of digital markets, information systems, and economic transformation processes. It focuses in particular on articles that address the design, impact, and governance of digital platforms and technologies in an organizational context.

The study examines how enterprise conversational agents (ECAs) influence the perception of brand identity and which factors lead to automated dialogue systems being perceived as consistent with a company’s intended brand positioning. Against the backdrop of the increasing prevalence of AI-powered chatbots, brand communication is increasingly shaped by algorithmically driven interactions. At the same time, there is a research gap regarding the question of how exactly these systems contribute to the construction and stabilization of brand identity.

To address this research gap, the authors of the study develop a framework based on a conceptual and empirically informed analysis of existing ECAs. The goal is to identify key design cues that enable a coherent and consistent perception of brand identity in conversational AI systems.

Based on this analysis, the authors demonstrate that specific design cues, in particular, significantly influence users’ perception of brand identity. Furthermore, it becomes clear that both user and contextual factors play a central role in the impact of ECAs on brand perception and significantly moderate these effects.

The framework developed provides a structured reference framework for designing ECAs in line with the desired brand identity, thereby offering both theoretical and practical implications for research and business practice in the field of digital brand communication.

The full article is available at the following link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12525-026-00901-3

Sonnabend, D., Reinhard, P., Dittmar, A., Li, M. M., & Leimeister, J. M. (2026): How enterprise conversational agents impact brand identity. Electron Markets36, 56 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-026-00901-3