| Summary: | After conversational agents have been made available to the broader public, we speculate that applying them as a mediator for adaptive environments reduces control complexity and increases user experience by providing a more natural interaction. We implemented and tested four agents, each of them differing in their system intelligence and input modality, as personal assistants for <i>Mediated Atmospheres</i>, an adaptive smart office prototype. They were evaluated in a user study (<inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <mrow> <mi>N</mi> <mo>=</mo> <mn>33</mn> </mrow> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>) to collect subjective and objective measures. Results showed that a smartphone application was the most favorable system, followed by conversational text and voice agents that were perceived as being more engaging and intelligent than a non-conversational voice agent. Significant differences were observed between native and non-native speakers in both subjective and objective measures. Our findings reveal the potential of conversational agents for the interaction with adaptive environments to reduce work and information overload.
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