The Impact of Artificial Intelligence Technology Stimuli on Sustainable Consumption Behavior: Evidence from Ant Forest Users in China

With the global economy and population growing rapidly, the problems of excessive resource consumption and environmental pollution have become increasingly serious. Thus, the need to promote sustainable development has become more urgent. Sustainable consumption behavior plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable development goals as it can significantly reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. Artificial intelligence technology has broken the limitations of time and space in environmental protection. For example, the Ant Forest leverages the design of “green energy” to inspire the public to engage in energy-saving and emission-reducing activities. To examine the impact mechanisms of customers’ sustainable consumption behavior, this study applies the stimulus-organism-response theory and the theory of planned behavior. The study conducts regression analysis and bootstrapping methods on a sample consisting of 280 Ant Forest users to explore the influence of artificial intelligence technology stimuli on sustainable consumption behavior and the mediating effects of customer-perceived value and customer stickiness. The results demonstrate a “linkage effect” between online green consumption habits and offline sustainable consumption behavior. Moreover, the study finds that passion and usability indirectly promote offline sustainable consumption behavior through customer-perceived value and customer stickiness. Specifically, the influence of customer-perceived emotional value (β = 0.121; β = 0.100) is stronger than that of customer-perceived social value (β = 0.043; β = 0.038). Due to the limitation of the sample size, future research should broaden its scope by incorporating additional variables, specifically customer-specific factors. Furthermore, more advanced research methods, such as big data analysis, should be employed to comprehensively explore the influencing factors of sustainable consumer behavior.