AN IMPORTANT PART PLAYED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFLUENCER MARKETING STRATEGIES

Abstract

This article evaluates the effectiveness of AI-generated social media influencers in comparison to traditional (human) influencers. In two empirical investigations, the authors examine the efficacy of AI social media influencers. The authors establish a norm for AI opinion leaders and investigate the impact of emotional and social distance on client feedback in Study 1. The authors examine the role of an influencer's agency, whether autonomous or externally controlled, to assess the scope of their research and establish the connection between influencer type and agency. The second research builds on the first and confirms its findings by emphasizing generalizability and the role of the need to be distinctive as a moderating mediator. The authors discuss how customers' perceptions of artificial intelligence (AI) and human influences are both distinct and similar. To emphasize, the study participants showed no differences in their intentional and individualized actions. This demonstrates that consumers are just as open to following an AI influencer as they are to following a human one, and that they rate the level of customization provided by the two influencer types similarly. Furthermore, contrary to widespread belief, AI influencers are more likely to increase word-of-mouth intentions. In order to explain these effects, the authors show that social distance mediates the connection between influencer type and the investigated outcomes. Also, the results suggest that buyers with a high demand for differentiation may be more influenced by AI influencers. The authors conclude that a negative effect results from a lack of influencer agency. Consumer reactions to product endorsement posts across different categories and channels may be investigated in future research. According to the authors, an artificial intelligence influencer may be just as effective as a human influencer in certain contexts. The authors argue that consumer receptivity to recommendations from AI influencers may be inferred from user interactions with current AI recommendation systems. Marketers are cautioned against replacing human influencers with AI analogues since the authors find persistent evidence that AI influencers are less trustworthy than human influencers. This study sheds new light on the ever-expanding sphere of effect of AI. In particular, it analyzes the impacts of AI influencers and compares them to those of human influencers, which helps it to begin to understand how consumers respond to AI influencers.