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Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

Abstract

As artificial Intelligence (AI) is having an increasing influence on the consumer-brand relationship, empirical evidence of the effects of AI-powered real-time communication on emotional brand engagement over time is scarce. Based on the Digital Emotional Brand Engagement (DEBE) model consisting of four outcome dimensions (Affective Engagement, Cognitive Engagement, Behavioral Engagement, Identification, and Emotional Attachment). The study proposes and empirically tests a model of four dimensions of AI interactions (Responsiveness and Availability, Personalization, Conversational Quality, Problem Resolution Efficiency). A descriptive-correlational quantitative design was adopted, and a sample of 400 consumers who had recently used AI-powered customer service was drawn. Multiple regression analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used for analysis of the data, as well as mediation and moderation analysis (PROCESS macro). By considering all four dimensions of the interaction between people and artificial intelligence together, we could explain 52.1% of the variance in DEBE. The beta value for Affective Engagement was the largest for Responsiveness and Availability, while the highest beta value for Identification and Emotional Attachment was for Personalization. The overall path coefficient of the complete model from AI interaction to DEBE was 0.714. Partial mediation was observed between the quality of AI interaction and behavioral engagement with Identification and Emotional Attachment, and Digital Literacy had a significant moderating effect on the relationship between the quality of AI interaction and the emotional engagement of the consumer. The results highlight how critical an AI-powered customer service can be for boosting customers' emotional connection with brands in an e-marketing environment.

DOI

10.33095/2227-703X.4358

Article Type

Research Article

Subject Area

Managerial

First Page

9

Last Page

22

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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