Enacting machine agency when AI makes one’s
day: understanding how users relate to AI communication
technologies for scheduling

Enacting machine agency when AI makes one’s
day: understanding how users relate to AI communication
technologies for scheduling

artificial intelligence, agency, machine agency, structuration theory, AI-mediated communication.

AI Communication Technologies (AICTs) make decisions about users’ communication on their behalf. Users’ implementation of AICTs that au-
tonomously act may enable and constrain how they accomplish their work and interact with others. Drawing on interviews with users of two

AICTs with differing levels of autonomy designed for work-related scheduling, this study investigated how users enacted AICTs in practice.
Users of both tools drew on AICTs’ autonomous capabilities to enact machine agency, a structure that assigns AICTs the power to allocate
resources, which helped them increase scheduling efficiency and guide how others interacted with them. Users of the tool that autonomously
implemented decisions described a process of enactment in which they used the tool to control their work, perceived the tool was exhibiting
too much control, and acted to regain control. I present implications for understanding how people enact machine agency with AICTs that make
decisions about their work.

Camille G. Endacott PhD,1,�

https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmae011

Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.

July 1, 2024

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