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AI-driven marketing and sustainability: from intelligent persuasion to responsible market transformation

Journal of Strategic Marketing 2026
Pham Van Hau, Carolyn Strong, Park Thaichon

Summary

This paper doesn't report new experiments—it lays out a research agenda arguing that AI in marketing (like the algorithms that recommend products or personalize ads) should be studied not just for boosting sales, but for its power to help—or hurt—efforts against pollution, waste, and overproduction. It matters because the same AI tools shaping what you buy could either encourage more mindless consumption (including plastic-heavy products tied to environmental and health concerns) or be redesigned to nudge people and companies toward more sustainable, less wasteful choices.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming marketing through machine learning, predictive analytics, intelligent recommender systems and generative AI. At the same time, sustainability challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, overproduction, greenwashing, and plastic pollution require marketing scholarship to move beyond firm-centric performance and ask how markets can be redesigned for responsible and regenerative futures. This study introduces AI-driven marketing and sustainability as a timely research agenda for examining the opportunities, risks, and governance of AI-driven marketing in sustainability contexts. Rather than framing AI merely as a tool for efficiency, personalization, or conversion optimisation, we argue that the key scholarly challenge is to understand when, how, and under what governance conditions AI-driven marketing can contribute to sustainable consumer behaviour, sustainable marketing strategies, circular marketing systems, responsible communication, and cross-level market transformation. The agenda also highlights priorities for interdisciplinary theory development, empirical testing, ethical oversight, and managerial and policy implications.

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