Creating Customer Value Through Smart Interactive Technology Affordances: The Sequential Roles of Customer Inspiration and Digital Customer Engagement

Artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled smart interactive tools are increasingly used in e-commerce service encounters, but their value does not arise from technological presence alone. This study examines how customers’ perceived affordances of smart interactive tools are translated into customer value co-creation behaviour. Drawing on affordance theory, customer inspiration, digital customer engagement and service-dominant logic, the study develops a sequential mediation model in which perceived smart interactive technology affordance (perceived SITA) stimulates customer inspiration, strengthens digital customer engagement and promotes value-contributing behaviour. Survey data were collected from 468 Chinese online consumers who had experience using chatbots, generative AI tools or augmented reality applications in online shopping. The model was tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results show that perceived SITA is positively associated with customer inspiration and digital customer engagement. Customer inspiration also strengthens digital customer engagement, which in turn promotes customer value co-creation behaviour. The findings clarify a motivational-engagement pathway through which AI-enabled tools support customer value creation. The study contributes to customer value creation research by showing how customers turn perceived technological affordances into participation in value co-creation.