Advertising in the digital era: Can AI evoke emotions like humans?

Purpose This study investigates the variations in consumers’ affective responses to AI-generated versus human-generated content in a firm’s advertising copywriting, analysing emotional reactions to short-form promotional text across three affective dimensions—Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance—from the PAD emotional model. Design/methodology/approach A Mann-Whitney analysis on SPSS 29 is conducted to assess group differences on a sample of 222 participants randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions. The analysis evaluates group variances across emotional constructs alongside three control variables: AI Encounter, AI recognition and AI trust. Findings The results indicate no significant differences among groups regarding the main emotional dimensions, suggesting relevant implications for AI integration in business process automations. However, trust and familiarity with AI technology influence consumers’ responses differently across conditions. Originality/value This study sheds light on new business opportunities for enhancing creative communication processes with AI implementation, providing practitioners with relevant insights to improve advertising and copywriting by collaboratively using AI in crafting emotionally engaging advertisements for effective communication strategies.