AI influencers in Tik Tok live e-commerce: A sense-to-sharing perspective

The use of AI influencers is becoming increasingly visible in China, particularly on social media and live streaming platforms such as Tik Tok/Douyin. While existing studies have examined consumer responses to AI influencers, researchers have tended to focus on adoption, engagement, or purchase-related outcomes, with less attention being paid to how consumers’ initial perceptions of AI influencer live streaming are transformed into post-exposure communicative behavior such as sharing. To address this gap, this study develops an integrated framework based on the Sense-Interest/Interactive-Connect/Communicate-Action-Sharing (SICAS) model. Specifically, the study examines how technological perceptions and cognitive processing conditions shape consumers’ sense of AI influencer live streaming, how this sense influences sharing, and how autonomy, competence, and relatedness directly influence sharing and moderate the sense-sharing relationship. Data were collected through an online questionnaire survey of 985 Chinese consumers familiar with AI influencer live streaming and analyzed using partial least-squares structural equation modeling with SmartPLS. The results suggest that AI influencer live streaming should be understood not only as a sales channel but also as a perception-to-diffusion process in which technological evaluation, cognitive processing, and psychological motivation jointly shape consumers’ willingness to share. The study contributes to AI influencer and live streaming commerce research by shifting attention from purchase-centered outcomes to sharing behavior and by clarifying how perception is transformed into social diffusion.