ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1636906
This article is part of the Research TopicReimagining roles and identity in the era of human - AI collaborationView all 6 articles
Why Unequal AI Access Enhances Team Productivity: The Mediating Role of Interaction Processes and Cognitive Diversity
Provisionally accepted
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
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Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is widely viewed as valuable for improving the performance of human-agent teams (HATs). However, in reality, not all members have equal access to AI tools, making uneven AI integration an important factor impacting team composition and, thus, team effectiveness. While unequal access might seem detrimental, potentially hindering technology utilization, it could also foster deeper interactions and diverse expertise. To clarify these mechanisms, this study extends the classic Input-Mediator-Output model to an Input-Process-State-Output (IPSO) framework. A lab experiment with 60 two-person teams reveals that unequal AI access yields the highest productivity, improving both task quality and completion time compared to no or full AI access. This effect is driven by two key mechanisms. First, negative socio-emotional interactions and increased cognitive diversity serve as a positive serial mediation pathway linking unequal AI access to enhanced task quality. Second, unequal AI access leads to more concentrated and imbalanced questioning behaviors, which accelerates task completion. This study provides an in-depth theoretical explanation of how AI integration structures operate in HATs and offers a foundation for strategically optimizing GenAI access in human-agent teaming.
Keywords: AI access, Cognitive Diversity, team interaction processes, team productivity, Human-agent teams, human -AI collaboration
Received: 28 May 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Han and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ruqin Ren, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
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