Artificial Intelligence in Digital and Social Media Marketing: The Mediating Role of Consumer Engagement

The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has fundamentally transformed the theoretical contours of marketing, redefining how consumers perceive, interact with, and engage with brands across digital and social media platforms. Once perceived merely as a technological enabler, AI has evolved into a cognitive and behavioural force that shapes consumer thought processes, emotional responses, and decision pathways. Its integration into marketing practices, through personalised recommendation engines, predictive analytics, conversational chatbots, and algorithmic content delivery, has shifted the paradigm from mass communication to hyper-personalised engagement ecosystems. This theoretical paper delves into the interdisciplinary convergence of AI, marketing, and consumer psychology, focusing on how consumer engagement functions as a central mediating construct linking AI-enabled stimuli to behavioural outcomes such as trust, loyalty, and advocacy. Rather than viewing engagement as a mere behavioural response, the paper reinterprets it as a dynamic psychological state, a fusion of cognitive absorption, emotional involvement, and participative behaviour, that is continuously shaped by technological interactivity and social context. Drawing upon established theoretical paradigms, namely the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S–O–R) model, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT), and Flow Theory, the discussion synthesises how AI-driven environments elicit human engagement through machine-mediated experiences. Each theoretical lens contributes to understanding AI not only as an operational tool but as an active social and emotional actor within digital ecosystems. The paper advances the theoretical discourse by articulating that the impact of AI in marketing extends beyond efficiency and personalisation; it resides in its ability to co-create emotional, cognitive, and experiential value that transforms passive audiences into interactive participants. Finally, it highlights conceptual implications for marketing scholarship, suggesting that future theoretical inquiry must address emerging constructs such as algorithmic empathy, digital trust, and the autonomy of engagement in AI-dominated communication landscapes.