The Intentionality Gap: Reconceptualizing Interpersonal Deception Theory and the Persuasion Knowledge Model for anthropomorphic AI agents

Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) and the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) have anchored the study of deception in marketing communications for three decades. Both assume that communicators possess actual intent: IDT defines deception as a message knowingly transmitted to foster a false belief, and the PKM models consumers’ inference of a communicator’s persuasive intent. Anthropomorphic artificial intelligence (AI) agents, including chatbots, embodied conversational agents, and virtual influencers, violate this assumption: they reliably trigger the trust, suspicion, and credibility judgments that both theories treat as evidence about a sender’s mental states, while lacking psychological intent of their own, even when communicative goals may reside in the organizations, systems, or design choices behind them. This paper introduces the intentionality gap, the mismatch between where consumers attribute intent and where communicative goals actually originate, and develops perceived agent intentionality (PAI) as the construct through which the gap operates. Synthesizing literatures on deception, persuasion knowledge, anthropomorphism, mind perception, dark patterns, and manipulation, the paper reconceptualizes IDT and the PKM around the receiver’s attribution of intent rather than the sender’s possession of it, presents a receiver-centered process model with eight propositions, and outlines a research agenda spanning measurement development, experimentation, and managerial application.