How to help small human influencers face GenAI challenges: The role of non-AI disclosure

GenAI (Generative AI) has reshaped influencer marketing; however, little scholarly attention has been paid to its negative impacts on small human influencers and the corresponding coping strategies they may adopt. Drawing on social role theory and employing an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, this study finds that (1) GenAI exerts both competitiveness and negative externality effects on small human influencers. The former is associated with market competition, whereas the latter relates to consumer interactions; (2) from the perspective of consumer interaction, non-AI disclosure mitigates the negative externality effect and enhances consumers’ ad click intention; (3) drawing on the congruence between behavior and role expectations, perceived creativity and work effort function as parallel mediators; and (4) the need for uniqueness positively moderates both the direct effect of non-AI disclosure on ad click intention and the mediating effect of perceived creativity. This study is among the first to investigate small human influencers and non-AI disclosure, offering important insights for the fields of influencer marketing and disclosure research.