“To comply or to react, that is the question:” the roles of humanness versus eeriness of AI-powered virtual influencers, loneliness, and threats to human identities in AI-driven digital transformation

AI-powered virtual influencers play a variety of roles in emerging media environments. To test the diffusion of AI-powered virtual influencers among social media users and to examine antecedents, mediators, and moderators relevant to compliance with and reactance to virtual influencers, data were collected using two cross-sectional surveys (∑ N = 1623). Drawing on the Diffusion of Innovations theory, survey data from Study 1 (N₁ = 987) provide preliminary descriptive statistics about US social media users' levels of awareness of, knowledge of, exposure to, and engagement with virtual influencers. Drawing from the theoretical frameworks of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis and the CASA (Computers Are Social Actors) paradigm, Study 2 examines social media users' compliance with versus reactance to AI-powered virtual influencers. Survey data from Study 2 (N₂ = 636) provide inferential statistics supporting the moderated serial mediation model that proposes (1) empathy and engagement with AI-powered virtual influencers mediate the effects of perceived humanness versus eeriness of virtual influencers on social media users' behavioral intention to purchase the products recommended by the virtual influencers (serial and total mediation effects) and (2) loneliness moderates the effects of humanness versus eeriness on empathy. Drawing from the theory of Psychological Reactance, Study 2 further reports the moderation effect of social media users' trait reactance and perceived threats to one's own human identity on the relationship between perceived eeriness and compliance with versus situational reactance to virtual influencers. Theoretical contributions to CASA research and the Uncanny Valley literature as well as managerial implications for AI-driven digital transformation in media industries and virtual influencer marketing are discussed.