The paradoxes of generative AI-mediated acculturation

Purpose This paper examines how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is transforming cross-cultural consumer engagement by reshaping how people encounter, learn and perform culture. We conceptualize GenAI as a cultural intermediary that enables “model-mediated contact,” extending acculturation theory beyond both direct and media-mediated forms of cultural learning to explain how algorithmic systems reshape cultural exposure, identity formation and adaptation in international marketing contexts. Design/methodology/approach We integrate acculturation theory, affordance theory and research on global consumer culture to build a conceptual framework linking four GenAI affordances – translation and localization, synthesis, role-play and simulation and conversational memory – to four mechanisms that shape AI-mediated cultural learning: secondhand acculturation, algorithmic cosmopolitanism, curated curiosity and the control illusion. The framework patterned tensions and trade-offs that affect both consumers and marketers, which we theorize as paradoxes rather than linear effects. Findings GenAI broadens cultural access but compresses nuance. It enables surface fluency while weakening pragmatic competence and authenticity. The four mechanisms reveal how algorithmic mediation fosters breadth over depth, legibility over meaning and efficiency over originality. These dynamics generate four paradoxes: Understanding–Authenticity, Connection–Resonance, Choice–Creativity and Democratization–Dominance. Together, they show how greater technological reach can simultaneously erode cultural richness, symbolic depth and brand distinctiveness. Originality/value This paper advances international marketing theory by introducing model-mediated acculturation and distinguishing algorithmic cosmopolitanism from experiential cosmopolitanism. It redefines consumer agency as interactive in form but bounded in substance and calls for updated frameworks that reflect GenAI's role in shaping cultural contact, authenticity and identity. It further specifies how GenAI-mediated acculturation reshapes core international marketing constructs, including brand authenticity, legitimacy, consumer–brand identification, perceived cultural distance and standardization–adaptation dynamics. For managers, it offers diagnostic guidance on preserving cultural depth, balancing AI and human mediation, redesigning journeys for model-shaped discovery and protecting provenance in a GenAI-driven marketplace.