When the communicator is code

Saxena, Prashant; Prahl, Andrew

Under review

When the communicator is code.

Human-Machine Communication · Communication and Social Robotics Labs

SJR 2025 Communication Q1Indexing Scopus + DOAJAccess Diamond open access

Standing of the target journal, not an achieved publication credential.

Saxena, P., & Prahl, A. (manuscript under review). When the communicator is code. Human-Machine Communication.

What the study finds

This is the process behind the construct. People keep re-checking what kind of thing is speaking, and that quiet check decides what gets believed.

Where it sits in the programme

This is one of six studies testing synthetic authenticity across care, social robots, AI influencers, classrooms, shopping agents and companion AI. Definitions for every construct used here are on the concepts page. The full programme, with journal standing for each venue, is on the research page.

← The authenticity paradox The transparency tax →

Synthetic Authenticity is Prashant Saxena’s research programme on how AI personas, including social robots, virtual influencers, companions, advisers and shopping agents, earn, exercise and lose legitimacy. It examines what makes an artificial persona appropriate enough to trust, buy from, learn from, disclose to or permit to act, and where acceptance turns into scrutiny, resistance or dependence. Written for CMOs, policymakers, deans, AI builders, communications leaders and the media.

Prashant Saxena is a Singaporean practitioner-scholar who coined the term Synthetic Authenticity. He researches AI personas at Nanyang Technological University, teaches at business schools, and leads revenue for Isentia across Southeast Asia, where he advises government agencies and brands.

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A personal research site. Views are the author’s own and are not those of Isentia or Nanyang Technological University. Disclosures, affiliations and data provenance.

AI-persona photographs and open assets via Wikimedia Commons: Willy Jackson, Xavier Care, RuinDig/Yuki Uchida, ITU Pictures, Tekniska museet/Peter Hall, and public-domain AI-generated media. Care and shopping-agent interface assets generated for Synthetic Authenticity. Graded to site palette.