Abstract
The influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on human life has been growing steadily in the last few years, arousing the increasing interest of economic researchers on its interaction with individual decision-making. This study empirically investigates the role of AI as a source of help in the context of a coordination dilemma employing an online experiment. In our design, participants engage in a one-shot minimum-effort game with leadership. The group leader must send a concise message to their teammates to improve coordination. Leaders can decide whether to transmit their human-written text or one generated by ChatGPT. Followers are aware of the message source before choosing their effort level. Results show that leadership with an AI message is as effective as an entirely human leadership in enhancing coordination: followers do not show algorithm aversion when making a payoff-relevant decision and can coordinate on the Pareto-dominant equilibrium with the same success rate with both message types. However, the perceived persuasiveness of the message is relevant to the effort choice only when the message is human-written, while it becomes irrelevant with the AI text. These findings suggest that AI could be a reliable tool in supporting human strategic interactions, and its use does not hinder the trustworthiness of its users.