IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v219y2025ics004016252500229x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How does AI-powered virtual influencer's anthropomorphism impact trust and brand love? The moderating role of opinion leadership

Author

Listed:
  • Rehman, Anisur
  • Kumar, Sushant
  • Salam, Muhammad Asif
  • Virmani, Naveen

Abstract

Virtual influencers (VIs) are a new class of influencers that are recently becoming popular on social media. Brands are also using these VIs for several activities. Yet, limited studies have investigated how these VIs drive trust and brand love among followers. Accordingly, this study aims to understand how anthropomorphism and attitude homophily of VIs drive trust towards VI and brand love. This study utilises a conceptual model developed from the theoretical foundation of Computers are Social Actors (CASA) theory with the intermediate variables of emotional attachment and hedonic experience. Data is collected from 321 respondents from Saudi Arabia through a questionnaire approach. The findings show that anthropomorphism drives emotional attachment and hedonic experience, which subsequently determines trust in VI and brand love. The moderating effects of opinion leadership are also confirmed. Social media managers are suggested to use more human-like characteristics in VIs to make them more appealing and relevant to users.

Suggested Citation

  • Rehman, Anisur & Kumar, Sushant & Salam, Muhammad Asif & Virmani, Naveen, 2025. "How does AI-powered virtual influencer's anthropomorphism impact trust and brand love? The moderating role of opinion leadership," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:219:y:2025:i:c:s004016252500229x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2025.124198
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004016252500229X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.techfore.2025.124198?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:219:y:2025:i:c:s004016252500229x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00401625 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.