AI-GENERATED BRAND CONTENT AND CONSUMER RESPONSES: THE ROLES OF AUTHENTICITY, TRUST, AND SWITCHING INTENTION

Abstract

The accelerating deployment of generative artificial intelligence in brand communication has unsettled a long-standing assumption of social media marketing: that the human origin of brand content is self-evident and need not be managed. As brands increasingly automate captions, visuals, and customer messaging, consumers are left to infer whether what they read was authored by a person or a machine, and that inference carries consequences for how genuine, trustworthy, and worth-keeping the brand feels. This study examines how the perceived source of brand content — AI-generated versus human-generated — shapes perceived authenticity, brand trust, and switch intention among social media users aged 18 and above in Punjab, Pakistan, an under-researched but rapidly digitising market. Integrating Source Credibility Theory, the Persuasion Knowledge Model, and Service Recovery Theory, the study advances a moderated-mediation model in which perceived authenticity mediates the effect of content source on both brand trust and switch intention, AI disclosure moderates the content-source-to-authenticity path, and brand response speed moderates the authenticity-to-switch-intention path.

Nine hypotheses were tested on a cross-sectional sample of 360 respondents using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with 5,000 bootstrap resamples in SmartPLS 4. The measurement model demonstrated strong reliability and validity, and all nine hypotheses were supported. Content source significantly and positively predicted perceived authenticity and, both directly and through authenticity, was associated with higher brand trust and higher switch intention. AI disclosure significantly weakened the content-source-to-authenticity effect, and a fast brand response significantly weakened the authenticity-to-switch-intention effect. The study contributes original evidence from a developing digital market and offers brand managers actionable guidance on transparent disclosure and social media responsiveness as levers for protecting trust in an era of automated communication.