Artificial intelligence (AI), as a tool to enhance operational efficiency and improve customer experience, has rapidly reshaping service and the pervasive integration of intelligent systems into commercial ecosystems has fundamentally redefined value co-creation mechanisms. Prior research has confirmed that the customer satisfaction and loyalty is expected to be critical factors for the success of business. Meanwhile, product quality has been proven to shift service quality as one of the most crucial drivers for customer satisfaction and loyalty across all industries. However, the number of current studies show that most customers prefer human interactions rather than AI services. Thus, understanding the drivers behind how customer loyalty evolves when it comes to AI services is therefore crucial. This study presents a cross-sectional study based on questionnaire survey data from the Chinese market to investigate whether and how the service quality of AI affects customer loyalty. Specifically, the research takes customer interaction uncertainty as a moderating variable and constructs a conceptual model of the relationship between AI service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. A regression analysis is performed to unravel the mechanism of the model mentioned above by using the data collected from 466 respondents in a cross-sectional study. The findings indicate that AI services have a profound positive impact on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction plays an intermediary role between them. Furthermore, customer participation moderates the relationship between AI service quality and customer satisfaction.
Gao et al. (2026) studied this question.