AI Review Bots vs. Humans in Handling Negative Reviews: Who Builds More Trust?

As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly engages in managing consumer interactions on e-commerce platforms, an important question arises: how do public AI-generated replies to negative reviews compare with human replies in fostering consumer trust? This study investigates consumer trust in reply source (AI review bots vs. human agents) across three reply strategies, namely, default, thinking, and feeling, in a public review context. AI review bots are defined as automated systems that publicly respond to consumer reviews. Using a controlled laboratory experiment, we find that when using the default strategy, human replies elicit greater trust than AI replies, mediated by higher perceived authenticity and persuasiveness. Conversely, when using the thinking strategy, AI replies outperform human replies in building consumer trust, as they are perceived as more authentic and persuasive. In the feeling strategy, there is a convergence between AI and human replies. These findings demonstrate that the effectiveness of AI versus human replies depends on the strategy adopted. Theoretically, this study extends research on human–AI interaction by introducing a three-strategy framework to systematically compare AI and human communicators in public review contexts. Practically, the results guide e-commerce sellers and platforms on when and how to deploy AI review bots to effectively manage consumer trust in response to negative reviews.