Picturing the fictitious person: An exploratory study on the effect of images on user perceptions of AI-generated personas

Human-computer interaction (HCI) research is facing a vital question of the effectiveness of personas generated using artificial intelligence (AI). Addressing this question, this research explores user perceptions of AI-generated personas for textual content (GPT-4) and two image generation models (DALL-E and Midjourney). We evaluate whether the inclusion of images in AI-generated personas impacts user perception or if AI text descriptions alone suffice to create good personas. Recruiting 216 participants, we compare three AI-generated personas without images and those with either DALL-E or Midjourney-created images. Contrary to expectations from persona literature, the presence of images in AI-generated personas did not significantly impact user perceptions. Rather, the participants generally perceived AI-generated personas to be of good quality regardless of the inclusion of images. These findings suggest that textual content, i.e., the persona narrative, is the primary driver of user perceptions in AI-generated personas. Our findings contribute to the ongoing AI-HCI discourse and provide recommendations for designing AI-generated personas.