The Mediating Roles of Two Psychological Experience Pathways: How Cross-Border Live Streaming Interactions Trigger Impulsive Purchases?—The Moderating Effect of AI Enablement

With the booming of cross-border live streaming e-commerce, this study examined the influence mechanism of cross-border live streaming interactions on consumers’ impulsive purchase intention based on the timulus–organism–response (SOR) model. Two independent psychological organism mediators are proposed, immersive experience and foreign cultural identity, and AI (artificial intelligence) enablement acts as a cross-layer moderating variable. Three core dimensions of cross-border live streaming interaction (consumer–product, consumer–consumer, consumer–anchor) are refined, and empirical tests are conducted with 620 valid questionnaires via SPSS 26.0, AMOS 28.0 and PROCESS. Results showed that consumer–product and consumer–anchor interactions exerted significant positive direct effects on impulsive purchase intention (consumer–consumer interaction’s direct effect was insignificant); both flow experience dimensions exert partial mediating effects in the paths linking consumer–product/consumer–anchor interaction to impulsive purchase intention and full mediating effects for the consumer–consumer interaction path. AI enablement positively moderates the effect of live streaming interactions on flow experience and the effect of immersive experience on impulsive purchase intention, but its moderating effect on the foreign cultural identity–impulsive purchase intention link was insignificant. This study advanced the research on cross-border live streaming consumer behavior and offered targeted practical suggestions for platform optimization with AI technology while enriching the SOR model’s application in cross-cultural consumption scenarios.