Exploring the Meaning of AI-Mediated Shopping Experiences among Online Fashion Consumers
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence, Consumer Experience, Phenomenology, Online Fashion Shopping, Digital Intimacy, Interpretative AnalysisAbstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of digital commerce, shaping how consumers navigate online environments and interact with algorithmic systems. Within this broader landscape, AI-driven fashion shopping presents a unique context in which emotional, relational, and experiential dynamics remain insufficiently understood. However, little is known about how customers interpret their lived experiences with AI during online shopping, leading to the central question of how they construct meaning around algorithmic influence and emotional engagement. This study uses an interpretative phenomenological approach to explore the essential meanings embedded in customers’ interactions with AI-driven features. To ensure methodological transparency, the study employed purposive sampling and recruited [insert actual number] online fashion consumers aged [insert age range] who had prior experience with AI-driven recommendation systems. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis, the study identifies key experiential themes, including ambivalent trust, perceived warmth, loss of autonomy, and emerging digital intimacy, which reveal how customers negotiate both comfort and vulnerability when engaging with AI. These themes demonstrate that AI functions not only as a recommendation tool but also as an influential actor shaping emotional, cognitive, and relational dimensions of consumer behavior. The findings extend current understandings of AI-mediated consumption by highlighting the complex meaning-making processes that unfold beneath conventional behavioral or functional evaluations. This contributes to a deeper understanding of consumer experience and provides direction for future research on AI, digital emotions, and the evolving relationships between humans and intelligent systems.
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