Human or AI-generated synthetic cause agents? Perceived organizational empathy and prosocial engagement in charitable communication

Purpose This study examines consumer responses to human versus AI-generated synthetic cause agents in charitable communication. It tests whether cause agent type affects three prosocial engagement outcomes with the cause, namely information seeking, willingness to donate and sharing intention, through perceived organizational empathy, and whether this process depends on beneficiary safeguarding framing and beneficiary vulnerability. Design/methodology/approach Three online experiments with US adult Prolific participants and a supplementary Chinese replication were conducted. The replication tested robustness using consequential donation behavior and perceived organizational warmth and perceived organizational morality as competing mechanisms. Study 1 tested the baseline effect of cause agent type and mediation by perceived organizational empathy. Study 2 examined beneficiary safeguarding framing as a moderator. Study 3 introduced beneficiary vulnerability as a higher-order boundary condition. Findings AI-generated synthetic agents reduced perceived organizational empathy and prosocial engagement compared with human cause agents, and perceived organizational empathy mediated these effects. Beneficiary safeguarding framing attenuated this disadvantage. When beneficiary vulnerability was low, human agents were favored under low safeguarding framing, but the difference was no longer significant under high safeguarding framing. When vulnerability was high, no significant differences between human and synthetic agents were observed. Originality/value This research identifies cause agent type as a representational signal in AI-enabled charitable communication and shows how its effect varies with beneficiary safeguarding and vulnerability.