Personification cues’ Influence on Co-created Products Purchase Intentions: The Mediating Role of Perceived Warmth

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has fostered an era of human-AI co-creation. In this context, AI serves not only as a functional tool but also as a collaborative partner, making it imperative to understand how AI characteristics shape consumer perceptions and experiences. Drawing on the Stereotype Content Model and High-/low-context Theory, this study investigates how personification cues influence consumers’ purchase intentions toward co-created products in human-AI co-creation scenarios, and examines the moderating role of interaction orientation framing. The results show that: (1) Human-like personification cues elicit stronger purchase intentions for co-created products compared to avatar-like cues. (2) Perceived warmth fully mediates the relationship between personification cues and purchase intention. (3) Interaction orientation framing moderates the effect of personification cues on perceived warmth, such that the effect is enhanced in the transactional (vs. relational) framing condition.