Applications of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Marketing: A Research Review and Future Prospects

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is turning marketing content into an abundant resource with near-zero marginal cost, but related research is highly fragmented. This paper thematically integrates Chinese- and English-language literature published from 2019 to 2026. The findings show that gains from GenAI marketing are “stratified along the funnel”: evidence of improvements at the attention and interaction stages is sufficient, whereas the effect on final conversion is weak; consumers’ evaluations of content are decoupled from evaluations of the “artificial intelligence (AI) source” label, and disclosure of the AI source significantly suppresses transactions; only 13% of the literature examines moderating variables. Accordingly, this paper proposes a five-stage integrated framework of “technical characteristics → marketing applications → psychological mechanisms → consumer responses → moderating boundaries” and a future research agenda.