<b>AI Strategic Orientation and the B2B Social Media Brand Meaning Process: Antecedents, Consequences, and Outcomes</b>

Artificial intelligence (AI) and social media continue to transform how brand meaning is co-created in business-to-business (B2B) contexts. Yet limited research explores brand meaning in the B2B context and research is specifically lacking that examines how firms’ AI strategic orientation influences the brand meaning journey and subsequent co-creation outcomes. Drawing on service-dominant logic, this study develops and tests a model positioning AI strategic vision as a key antecedent to brand partnerships, storytelling-driven brand passion, and co-created brand meaning, which in turn shape social media brand value co-creation and AI value-in-use. Using a sample of 197 B2B marketing professionals, the PLS-SEM results indicate that AI strategic vision significantly influences all three elements of the brand meaning journey and, indirectly, AI value-in-use. Although storytelling emerged as the strongest predictor of co-created brand meaning, it only influenced AI value-in-use through mediated pathways. Combined, these findings position a firm’s strategic vision for AI in a social media marketing context as a strategic enabler of narrative, relational, and symbolic brand-building processes in B2B marketing environments. The current study advances theoretical understanding of AI-enabled co-creation and provides actionable guidance for B2B marketers seeking to align brand meaning strategies with AI and social media capabilities.