Exploring the Effects of Support Type and Task Difficulty for Virtual Assistants as Social Companions

Virtual assistants (VAs) are increasingly positioned not just as tools, but as potential social companions—capable of offering either emotional or informational support. Yet, how these forms of support should adapt to varying task difficulties and embodiment styles remains underexplored. We conducted two user studies with cognitive and physical tasks to investigate how support type (emotional vs. informational) shapes user perceptions across variations in task difficulty (easy vs. hard) and embodiment (non-embodied vs. embodied). In Study 1, emotional support positively influenced users’ impressions of VA in easy tasks, while informational support was more effective in difficult tasks. In Study 2, participants also preferred emotional support for easy tasks, but differences between support types were less pronounced for difficult tasks. Notably, embodiment exerted no significant influence in either study. These findings underscore the role of context in shaping effective support strategies, offering design insights for VAs as social companions.