Artificial Intelligence And The Rise Of Social Commerce: Understanding Consumer Behavior In The Digital Age

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-empowered social media commerce has transformed how consumers find information, conduct research, and buy products online. This study draws on existing research on ‘social commerce’ and the role of AI within it to analyze the effects of algorithmic personalization, conversational agents, and AI-assisted livestreaming on consumer trust in the brand, engagement, and purchase intent. This study is based on a thorough review of scientific articles published in journals from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) and Taylor & Francis, identifying five common thematic areas that pinpoint personalized recommendation platforms, conversational artificial intelligence and chatbots, AI-powered livestreaming/VI platforms, trust and transparency mechanisms, and consumer purchase-intention pathways. The results also suggest that AI is an enabler of consumer convenience and an engine of privacy concerns, while trust is a central mediating concept in almost all of the reviewed models. The synthesis also uncovers consistent research designs based on large-scale surveys and on questionnaire-based frameworks of technology acceptance, uses and gratifications, and stimulus-organism-response. The study concludes with an examination of the methodological and geographic constraints of the current research and suggests future directions in cross-cultural validity, longitudinal studies, and the ethical management of AI in social commerce.