Visual Context in AI Recommendations: Implications for Consumer Evaluation and Choice

Artificial intelligence (AI) recommendations increasingly combine product information with contextual visual presentation. In age‐friendly furniture recommendations, these visuals may convey cues about home settings, product use, and older users. This study examines whether older self‐buyers and adult‐child proxy buyers respond similarly to such cues. The Stimulus–Organism–Response framework provides the theoretical foundation, while possible‐selves theory and self‐congruity theory guide interpretation of segment differences. A focus group of seven experts informed stimulus development. A 2 × 3 between‐subjects experiment involved 330 participants: 165 older self‐buyers aged 60–75 and 165 adult‐child proxy buyers aged 40–59. Within each composite age‐role segment, participants were randomly assigned to product‐only presentation, home‐context presentation, or an older‐user use scene in a home context. Analysis of variance assessed the segment × visual format interaction in purchase intention, structural equation modelling examined relationships between consumer appraisals and purchase intention, and logistic regression examined add‐to‐cart behaviour. Among older self‐buyers, home‐context presentation was positively associated with perceived warmth, home fit, trust, and age salience relative to product‐only presentation, while the older‐user use scene in a home context was significantly associated with home fit and age salience. Purchase intention showed a significant segment × visual format interaction. Descriptively, mean purchase intention was highest under home‐context presentation among older self‐buyers and under the older‐user use scene in a home context among adult‐child proxy buyers. Perceived warmth, home fit, and trust were positively associated with purchase intention, which was positively associated with add‐to‐cart behaviour. These findings link visual context in AI recommendations to age‐friendly consumption and intergenerational purchasing. Purchasing‐role effects cannot be isolated from age differences, and structural paths should be interpreted as associational rather than causal. The findings suggest segment‐sensitive visual design emphasising home integration for older self‐buyers and cues related to older users and product use for adult‐child proxy buyers.