How does AI awareness enhance the innovative performance of employees?

Amid digital transformation, understanding how AI awareness enhances employee innovation performance (EIP) is crucial. Drawing on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework, this study explores the mechanism linking AI awareness and employee innovation performance through structural equation modeling and hierarchical regression. Employees from 16 five-star hotels in Shandong Province, China, were surveyed; 450 questionnaires were distributed, and 408 valid responses were collected. Results show that leader innovative performance significantly increases employees' innovation motivation, yet its direct effect on EIP is nonsignificant and instead mediated by creativity and digital innovation. Digital innovation accounts for 65.9 % of the total effect, validating the "technological leverage effect," whereby systematic digital innovation yields stronger scalable outcomes than individual creativity. Moreover, AI awareness moderates these relationships differently-it acts as a "technological cognition amplifier" in the creativity pathway and a "technological synergy catalyst" in the digital innovation pathway. Integrating AI awareness into the TOE framework, the study proposes a dynamic "cognition-technology synergy" model and an AI empowerment strategy of "strategic anchoring, technological inclusivity, and cognitive stratification." The findings provide empirical support for the concept of technological cognitive capital in the digital economy.