Alleviating the interaction distrust of AI services: the moderating effect of sustainable development orientation

Purpose With the upgrading of tourism consumption, the simulation extension of AI and the uncertainty of products and services have received more and more attention. However, most of the existing tourism research focuses on the positive aspects of artificial intelligence, while ignoring the impact of its privacy and safety issues on consumer decision-making psychology. To explore the negative spillover effects of AI on interactive trust, this article examines the negative impact of concerns about AI privacy and security issues on the establishment of consumer’s interactive trust, and studies the mediating effect of perceived sincerity and the moderating effect of sustainable development orientation. Design/methodology/approach Based on the theory of human-computer interaction, this study addresses the concerns of the vast number of travel consumers about AI privacy and security issues, and builds a model of the influence mechanism on the willingness of establish consumers’ interactive trust, and then verifies the mediating effect of perceived sincerity and the moderating effect of sustainable development orientation of enterprises. This research explores underlying mechanism with two experiments. Findings It turns out that consumers’ concerns are negatively related to their willingness to establish interactive trust. At the same time, when the company’s sustainable development orientation is high, the impact of the concerns of AI privacy and security issues on the establishment of interactive trust will be weakened, and the intermediary mechanism of perceiving sincerity will be further explained and verified. Originality/value Research has confirmed the mediating role of perceived sincerity of the consumers and the moderating role of the sustainable development orientation of enterprises.