AI and human broadcasters: Relative impact on consumer engagement in live streaming commerce

Existing research on live streaming commerce has explored consumers' responses to AI and human broadcasters, respectively. However, it remains unclear whether there are conditional differences in the performance of these two types of broadcasters. This study investigates the relative effectiveness of AI versus human broadcasters in engaging consumers, taking into account consumers' level of social overload. Analyses of data collected from 1233 live streaming commerce users were conducted to test proposed hypotheses. The results reveal that AI broadcasters are more effective in engaging consumers with a high-level of social overload, while human broadcasters outperform AI broadcasters among consumers with a low-level of social overload. Pleasure, arousal, and dominance, three mediators whose effects vary across consumers' level of social overload, interpret this difference jointly. The findings offer valuable insights into strategies for attracting consumers with diverse levels of social overload via different types of broadcasters in live streaming commerce.