Conditional trust pathways in live-streaming commerce: how consumer motivation influences responses to human and AI anchors

BackgroundAI anchors are increasingly deployed in live-streaming commerce, raising the question of whether they can substitute for human anchors. Prior studies have documented differences in consumer responses to these anchor types, but the psychological processes underlying trust formation remain unclear. This study approaches the question from a media psychology and human-machine communication perspective rather than focusing solely on commercial outcomes.MethodsA between-subjects experimental