Art in the age of AI

: consumer perceptions and purchase behavior towards human-created and AI-generated artworks

Abstract

The artworld has been undergoing drastic changes due to the increasing usage of digital tools, particularly artificial intelligence, to create artworks. The study explores the connection between the type of art, AI-generated and human-created, in regards to purchase behavior as well as the influence on perceptions of authenticity, uniqueness and creativity. The existing academic literature in connection with the collected data, provides insightful and relevant results. To further gather data, an experimental research method was used to compare perceptions towards AI-generated and human-created art, providing in-depth insights. First of all the results show that individuals have higher purchase intentions for human-created art than AI-generated art, indicating that the type of art influences the decision-making process. Furthermore, the attributes authenticity and creativity show strong influences on how artworks are perceived as well as influence purchase decisions. Interestingly, the overall perception of AI-generated art is not perceived as more negatively than human-created art, leading to similar influence of purchase intention. Nevertheless, in the end the purchase behavior still changes due to the origin of creation. Involvement in this framework can only be assumed to have limited influences since the results are at most marginally significant. These findings lead to managerial and academic implications for the overall approach of handling and communicating the opportunities and challenges of AI-generated art for the artworld as well as creating new perspectives for further research to comprehensively understand the complex interactions between the types of art and consumer behavior.

Date of Award	24 Jan 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	João Niza Braga (Supervisor)