The Role of AI Agency, Personalization and Consumer Trust in Online Purchase Decisions: An Empirical Study

Abstract

The rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into e-commerce has transformed the way consumers search for information, evaluate alternatives, and make online purchase-decisions. AI-enabled systems increasingly use recommendation engines, predictive analytics, conversational agents, and personalized content to provide consumers with more relevant and convenient shopping experiences. However, the effectiveness of such AI interventions depends not only on personalization but also on consumer’s perception of AI agency, transparency, privacy and trust. Research indicates that personalization can influence purchase intentions through perceived relevance and consumer trust, while excessive and insufficiently transparent personalization may raise privacy concerns. The study focuses on how consumers perceive AI system’s ability to understand preferences, provide recommendations, anticipate needs, and support purchasing decisions. It further investigates whether personalized recommendations enhance perceived usefulness and relevance and how these perceptions contribute to consumer trust and purchase decision-making. The findings can provide useful implications for e-commerce platforms and digital retailers seeking to design consumer-centric AI applications that improve decision-support and purchasing experience while maintaining consumer confidence. A sample of 233 was collected to find the result of the study. The factors studying the Role of AI Agency, Personalization and Consumer Trust in Online Purchase Decisions are AI Agency, AI Personalization, Consumer Trust in AI and Perceived AI Transparency.