The Authenticity Paradox: How AI-Generated Content and Content Modality Shape Perceived Authenticity, Brand Authenticity, and Purchase Intent in Luxury Influencer Advertising

Abstract

Luxury brands are already turning to (AI) to create content for social media, not to mention managing virtual influencers. A 2 (content creator type: AI-generated vs. human) X 2 (content modality: static image vs. short video) between-subjects experiment (N=800) was conducted with the theoretical foundation of Social Presence Theory and the Source Credibility Model to explore the effects of these factors on perceived authenticity, brand authenticity, and purchase intent in a luxury advertising context. Two-way ANOVA results indicate that human-generated content significantly outperforms AI-generated content on all outcome variables (η²p =.58–.75) and that short video content outperforms static images (η²p =.32–.46) A significant creator type × content modality interaction was found for purchase intent (η2p = .04). PROCESS macro mediation analysis (Model 4) indicates that perceived authenticity mediates, in part, the effects of both creator-type and content-modality on brand authenticity and purchase intent.