Humanisation and the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Digital Marketing and E-commerce

Abstract

The current study explored how the humanisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) affects Digital Marketing (DM) and E-commerce. In particular, the current study explored how AI-enabled personalization, the quality of human-AI interaction, and transparency, ethical usage of AI influences the effectiveness of E-commerce marketing via the perception of humanisation of AI (in E-commerce marketing). To obtain the results of the current study, qualitative research method was adopted. A semi-structured interview method was employed with 15 E-commerce managers as participants in the current study. The sample of participants was selected based on their active involvement with AI in DM and customer engagement. Data from the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis (i.e. analysis of the data collected from interviews) to identify common themes and patterns within the data. Results show that personalization via AI, quality human-AI interactions and transparency, ethical uses of AI positively influence how AI is perceived to be humanised in marketing. The respondents reported that humanizing AI applications provided a means for building trust, building customer engagement, and building quality of customer relationships which ultimately enhanced marketing effectiveness within E-commerce. The study concluded that perceived humanization is the major mediating factor that allows the effective E-commerce marketing outcomes of AI capabilities. E-commerce businesses can support sustainable DM performance using human-cantered design of their AI-enabled applications.