Be My Assistant or My Partner? How AI Relational Roles and Goal Distance Impact Consumers’ Intentions to Participate in Collective Sustainable Behavior

Encouraging broad consumer participation is an important pathway to achieving sustainable development. Current research mostly focuses on individual sustainable behavior, with less attention given to collective sustainable behavior under a shared goal. This work is based on the widespread embedding and use of relational AI in different scenarios, employing three studies to verify how AI relational roles and goal distance jointly influence consumers’ participation intention in collective sustainable behavior. The research found that when an assistant-type AI is matched with a large-distance goal, it is more effective in enhancing consumers’ participation intentions, whereas a partner-type AI is more persuasive when matched with a small-distance goal. Furthermore, sustainable identity affirmation and positive emotional resonance serve a serial mediating role in the aforementioned interaction effect. This work reveals the matching mechanism between AI relational roles and goal distance, expanding the research perspective of relational AI in promoting sustainable behavior and providing practical insights for leveraging AI to optimize collective sustainable behavior communication strategies.