The effect of AI-generated content on information credibility, consumer trust, and purchase decisions: the moderating role of AI-use transparency
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47065/imj.v6i2.589Keywords:
AI-generated content, AI disclosure, information credibility, platform trust, social commerceAbstract
This study examines whether transparency about artificial intelligence helps or harms consumers in an emerging social commerce market. Prevailing experimental evidence, drawn largely from mature Western markets, reports that disclosing AI involvement lowers credibility and trust; this study tests whether that finding holds in Indonesia and traces how AI awareness and AI-use disclosure reach purchase decisions through information credibility and two distinct dimensions of trust. Data were collected through a screened online panel survey of active social commerce consumers in six Indonesian metropolitan areas who shop mainly on Shopee and TikTok Shop, and were analysed with partial least squares structural equation modelling using a bootstrapping procedure. Contrary to the prevailing evidence, both AI awareness and AI-use disclosure increased perceived information credibility, with disclosure being the stronger antecedent, while their interaction was not significant, indicating an additive rather than a buffering relationship. Information credibility strongly increased both seller and information trust and platform trust, yet only platform trust had a significant effect on purchase decisions, and only the indirect pathways running through platform trust were significant. The study recommends that sellers treat voluntary AI disclosure as a low-cost trust-building instrument rather than a compliance cost, that platforms adopt uniform platform-issued provenance labelling supported by visible structural assurance, and that regulators pair disclosure mandates with verification infrastructure and digital literacy programmes.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Shinta Rahmani, M. Ali Iqbal, Hery Derajad Wijaya, Sigit Setiawan, Mia Romadona
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