Artificial Intelligence and its impact on business sustainability in B2B firms: A hybrid PLS-ANN approach

Sustainability has now become the top priority in the global business environment. This study aims to comprehend and test the mediating effect of Artificial Intelligence Adoption (AIA) on Internal Environmental Dynamism (IED), Competitive Pressures (CP) and Business Sustainability (BS). The study used the Technology Organization Environment (TOE) framework and theories such as the Dynamic Capabilities View (DCV) to understand how AI adoption influences business sustainability. The research used primary data and the results were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural networks (ANN) as analytical methods. The result supported the hypothesized association between CP, IED, AIA and BS. The study found that AIA mediate the constructive relation between CP, IED, with BS. Competitive pressure emerged as the most significant predictor of business sustainability, with a normalized importance of 100 %, followed by AI adoption (37.33 %) and Internal Environmental Dynamism (36.10 %). The results suggest some practical and theoretical implications for B2B firms. The study recommends that the CP can help firms adopt AI, which will ultimately impact the firm's sustainability goals in a dynamic market.