When the winds of change blow: an empirical investigation of ChatGPT’s usage behaviour

ChatGPT is a cross-era conversational artificial intelligence (AI) programme based on a large natural language processing model. Due to its novelty, researchers know little about the drivers of its user behaviour. This study integrates perceived innovation characteristics (PCIs) and the extended technology acceptance theory (E-TAM) to establish a theoretical model to investigate ChatGPT’s usage behaviour. We collected 521 valid replies and used structural equation modelling to evaluate the data. Our findings show that relative advantage, image, result demonstrability, and perceived ease of use can positively impact the perceived usefulness, which leads to the usage behaviour of ChatGPT. Furthermore, perceived ease of use is influenced by visibility and compatibility, and can directly lead to the usage behaviour of ChatGPT. The moderation analysis results suggest that both personal innovativeness and perceived enjoyment can amplify the hypothesised impacts of relative advantage and compatibility. However, the relationship between image and perceived usefulness is only contingent on personal innovativeness (not perceived enjoyment), and only perceived enjoyment significantly moderates the impacts of result demonstrability and visibility. The findings of the present research provide valuable theoretical underpinnings and practical implications for explaining ChatGPT’s usage behaviour.