AI-Mediated Retail Visibility and Consumer Purchase Intent Across Search Results Social Endorsements and Product Bundling Decisions

Abstract

 Retail marketing is increasingly shaped by digital environments in which consumers encounter brands through search answers, creator endorsements, product pages, and recommendation interfaces before making a purchase decision. These environments do not operate as separate channels from the consumer's point of view. A shopper may first learn about a brand through an AI-generated answer, then see the same brand in a social endorsement, and finally evaluate it beside complementary products on a retailer page. This paper reports an empirical study of how cross-channel visibility conditions influence purchase intent in an AI-mediated retail journey. The study uses a controlled online experiment with 1,248 adult respondents assigned to retail scenarios that varied search visibility, endorsement source, and product-bundling strength. The analysis compares purchase intent, brand trust, perceived usefulness, search confidence, and willingness to revisit the brand. Results show that high AI-search visibility increased purchase intent by 9.4\% relative to low visibility, while human social endorsement produced stronger trust than virtual endorsement in high-involvement categories. Strong product bundling cues improved perceived usefulness and reduced decision uncertainty, especially when the brand was already visible in AI-search results. The highest-performing condition combined cited AI-search visibility, human endorsement, and routine-based product bundling. The findings suggest that business managers should evaluate digital visibility as a connected system rather than as separate search, social, and merchandising activities. The study contributes practical evidence on how AI-mediated discovery, endorsement credibility, and retail presentation jointly shape consumer response.