Perceived AI Service Intensity and Behavioral Intentions Toward Hotels: An AI-Enabled Value Realization Model

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded across hotel service journeys, but limited research explain how guests’ perceptions of the overall AI-enabled service configuration are associated with their subsequent behavioral intentions toward the hotel. This study develops and tests an AI-enabled value realization model linking perceived AI service intensity with technology appraisal, service personalization, value co-creation, expectation confirmation, and behavioral intentions. A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 1733 guests who had encountered AI-enabled services in three-, four-, or five-star hotels located across 12 cities in mainland China. The model was examined using structural equation modeling, bias-corrected bootstrapping of indirect associations, and exploratory multi-group path comparisons. Perceived AI service intensity was positively associated with perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intentions. The total indirect association was significant, and the largest reported specific indirect pathways involved service personalization. Ten of the eleven structural paths did not differ significantly across hotel tiers; the personalization–behavioral intentions association was nominally stronger in three-star than in five-star hotels. The findings position perceived AI service intensity as a journey-level service configuration and identify personalization as a prominent connection between technology appraisal and value realization, while recognizing the associational and exploratory boundaries of the evidence.