Consumer vulnerability in artificial intelligence-driven marketing: A paradox theory lens

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming marketing through hyper-personalization, predictive analytics and enhanced customer experience, yet its ethical implications for consumer vulnerability remain undertheorized. We apply a paradox theory lens to identify four tensions in AI-driven marketing: Diversity (included versus excluded), Data (safeguarded versus exploited), Dignity (empowered versus dependent), and Development (informed versus misinformed). We advance a conceptual framework situating these tensions within key boundary conditions (consumer agency, marketer intentionality, and AI opacity) that determine whether AI alleviates or exacerbates consumer vulnerability. In doing so, we extend marketing scholarship on AI-driven marketing, consumer vulnerability, and inclusion by theorizing AI as a relational, dual-sided agent rather than a uniformly empowering or exploitative one, built on a both/and paradox framing. We also translate the framework into strategic guidelines, CARE (Control, Aim, Reveal, and Empathy), that encapsulate our framework’s boundary conditions and dimensions to help practitioners and policymakers act on these tensions in practice.