The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Technology Stimuli on Sustainable Consumption Behavior: Evidence from Ant Forest Users in China

Abstract

With the global economy and population growing rapidly, the problems of excessive resource consumption and environmental pollution have become increasingly serious. Thus, the need to promote sustainable development has become more urgent. Sustainable consumption behavior plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable development goals as it can significantly reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. Artificial intelligence technology has broken the limitations of time and space in environmental protection. For example, the Ant Forest leverages the design of “green energy” to inspire the public to engage in energy-saving and emission-reducing activities. To examine the impact mechanisms of customers’ sustainable consumption behavior, this study applies the stimulus-organism-response theory and the theory of planned behavior. The study conducts regression analysis and bootstrapping methods on a sample consisting of 280 Ant Forest users to explore the influence of artificial intelligence technology stimuli on sustainable consumption behavior and the mediating effects of customer-perceived value and customer stickiness. The results demonstrate a “linkage effect” between online green consumption habits and offline sustainable consumption behavior. Moreover, the study finds that passion and usability indirectly promote offline sustainable consumption behavior through customer-perceived value and customer stickiness. Specifically, the influence of customer-perceived emotional value (β = 0.121; β = 0.100) is stronger than that of customer-perceived social value (β = 0.043; β = 0.038). Due to the limitation of the sample size, future research should broaden its scope by incorporating additional variables, specifically customer-specific factors. Furthermore, more advanced research methods, such as big data analysis, should be employed to comprehensively explore the influencing factors of sustainable consumer behavior.

The influence of AI on the economic growth of different regions in China

“…The artificial intelligence industry improves its innovation ability by promoting the transformation of intelligent technologies. The artificial intelligence industry promotes the transformation of intellectual energy technology, which can well drive the development of a series of related industries, promote industrial division of labor, coordination and development, and thus form industrial innovation cooperation 22 , 23 . At the same time, the artificial intelligence industry has formed full innovation cooperation, making enterprises, government organizations, service agencies, social groups and other organizations jointly build an innovation network system with the artificial intelligence industry as the core.…”