Who Should Lead and What to Say? Exploring AI-Dominant vs. Human-Dominant Content Creation for Informational and Emotional Marketing

As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into marketing, brands face both opportunities and challenges in using AI to co-create content that drives consumer engagement. However, empirical research on the impact of human-AI collaborative content remains limited. This study addresses this gap by combining the Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) and resonance theory to propose a model that examines how collaboration modes (AI-dominant vs. human-dominant) and content types (informational vs. emotional) influence online brand engagement through cognitive and emotional resonance. Two online experiments investigate their interaction and the mediating role of resonance. The results reveal a key matching effect: AI-dominant collaborations enhance engagement with informational content through cognitive resonance, while human-dominant collaborations strengthen engagement with emotional content through emotional resonance. These findings provide both theoretical and practical insights, demonstrating how aligning collaboration mode with content type can optimize human-AI content marketing and guide brands in leveraging generative AI to improve engagement.