Original title: How Users Perceive and Respond to Digital Humans: A Scoping Review of Agency, Embodiment, Social Role, and Response Outcomes
Xuandi Gong, Li Zeng · September 2026
Digital humans are showing up everywhere online as virtual influencers, customer service agents, animated avatars, and AI companions. Because research on how people react to them is scattered across different fields, researchers wanted to bring all these findings together. They gathered and analyzed fifty-one studies published between 2016 and 2025. They discovered that people do not just judge digital humans by how human they look. Instead, reactions depend on three big things: whether the digital human seems to act on its own, how it looks and moves, and what social job it performs. These factors shape users' mental reactions, their relationships, and their actual behaviors. Most research focuses on shopping and marketing, while leaving out long-term interactions, diverse cultures, broader media settings, and negative or mixed user reactions.
Imagine you meet a new person online. At first you judge them by their profile picture, but you quickly realize that how they talk and what they do matters more. If they seem fake or have no clear purpose, you stop engaging. Here, researchers found that users judge digital humans not just by how human they look, but by how much control they seem to have, how present they feel, and what role they play—just like with real people.
For anyone designing virtual influencers, AI companions, or avatars, this review shows that making them look human isn't enough. Users also care about what the entity can do (agency), whether it feels present (embodiment), and what role it plays (social role). Ignoring these dimensions risks user distrust or disengagement, especially in marketing, entertainment, and online communities.
The abstract notes that the evidence is concentrated in marketing and commerce, with limited attention to broader media contexts, long-term interaction, cultural diversity, and negative or ambivalent responses. As a scoping review, it maps the field but does not test causal hypotheses or provide effect sizes.
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How Users Perceive and Respond to Digital Humans: A Scoping Review of Agency, Embodiment, Social Role, and Response Outcomes — Xuandi Gong, Li Zeng — Behavioral Sciences — doi:10.3390/bs16091700
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.