There are many valid concerns about Artificial Intelligence (AI) that must be taken seriously. However, historically, technological progress has sometimes led to unexpected benefits. This essay begins with an imaginative fictional future-history, followed by an academic discussion. The fictional narrative acts as a jumping-off point for exploring the potential benefits of social AI, or AI that interact socially with humans, (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Grok etc) in three areas: (1) social AI agents as relationship partners, (2) how our interactions with AI might affect our human relationships, and (3) social AI's influence on shaping self-identity. Consistent with macromarketing, we examine how social AI in marketing might affect people's lives far beyond the economic sphere. And in keeping with the theme of this special issue on phygital marketing, we conclude with suggestions on how these dynamics could impact phygital (physical and digital) marketing strategies and consumption trends.
Abdel-KarimB. M.PfeufferN.CarlK. V.HinzO. (2023). How AI-based systems can induce reflections: The case of AI-augmented diagnostic work. MIS Quarterly, (4). https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2022/16773
2.
AhuviaA. (2022). The things we love: How our passions connect us and make us who we are. Hachette.
3.
AhuviaA. C. (2005). Beyond the extended self: Loved objects and consumers’ identity narratives. Journal of Consumer Research, 32(1), 171–184. https://doi.org/10.1086/429607
4.
AlkahtaniB. N. (2024). The impact of Artificial Intelligence on quality of life for deaf and hard of hearing students. American Annals of the Deaf, 169(4), 329–347. https://doi.org/10.1353/aad.2024.a946587
5.
AmaroI.Della GrecaA.TortoraG. (2024, December). HAYT Application: The use of NLP to improve the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety and depression. 2024 IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM) (pp. 6774–6781), IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/BIBM62325.2024.10822039
6.
ArakawaR.YakuraH. (2024, July). Coaching copilot: Blended form of an LLM-powered chatbot and a human coach to effectively support self-reflection for leadership growth. Proceedings of the 6th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (pp. 1–14). https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640794.3665549
7.
ArbeauK.ThorpeC.StinsonM.BudlongB.WolffJ. (2020). The meaning of the experience of being an online video game player. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 2, 100013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2020.100013
8.
BanksJ.BowmanN. D. (2021). Some assembly required: Player mental models of videogame avatars. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 701965. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701965
9.
BatatW. (2024a). What does phygital really mean? A conceptual introduction to the phygital customer experience (PH-CX) framework. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 32(8), 1220–1243. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2022.2059775
10.
BatatW. (2024b). Phygital customer experience in the metaverse: A study of consumer sensory perception of sight, touch, sound, scent, and taste. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 78, 103786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2024.103786
11.
BelancheD.BelkR. W.CasalóL. V.FlaviánC. (2024). The dark side of artificial intelligence in services. The Service Industries Journal, 44(3–4), 149–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2024.2305451
12.
BelkR. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(2), 139–168. https://doi.org/10.1086/209154
13.
BellamyE. (2024). Looking backward, 2000–1887. In The development of the national economy (Vol. 3, pp. 157–214). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003549253-c6
14.
BenderE. M.GebruT.McMillan-MajorA.ShmitchellS. (2021, March). On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big?Proceedings of the 2021 ACM conference on fairness, accountability, and transparency (pp. 610–623). https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922
15.
BenvenutiM.CangelosiA.WeinbergerA.MazzoniE.BenassiM.BarbaresiM.OrsoniM. (2023). Artificial intelligence and human behavioral development: A perspective on new skills and competences acquisition for the educational context. Computers in Human Behavior, 148, 107903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107903
16.
BerloD. K. (1960). The process of communication: An introduction to theory and practice. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
17.
BornetP.WirtzJ. (2025). Agentic artificial intelligence: harnessing AI agents to reinvent business, work, and life. World Scientific. https://doi.org/10.1142/14380
18.
BrandtzaegP. B.LüdersM. (2021). Young people's use and experience of the Internet during the COVID-19 lockdown: Well-being and social support. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i12.11755
19.
BrandtzaegP. B.SkjuveM.FølstadA. (2022). My AI friend: How users of a social chatbot understand their human–AI friendship. Human Communication Research, 48(3), 404–429. https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac008
20.
BrandtzaegP. B.SkjuveM.FølstadA. (2025, March 20). AI individualism: Transforming social structures in the age of social artificial intelligence. In HackerP. (Ed.), Oxford intersections: AI in society (online ed.). Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198945215.003.0099
21.
BrandtzægP. B.SkjuveM.Kristoffer DystheK. K.FølstadA. (2021, May). When the social becomes non-human: Young people's perception of social support in chatbots. Proceedings of the 2021 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1–13). https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445318
22.
CapelT.PlodererB.BircaninF.HanmerS.YatesJ. P.WangJ.NewcombM. (2024, July). Studying self-care with generative AI tools: Lessons for design. Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 1620–1637). https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3661614
CirielloR.HannonO.ChenA. Y.VaastE. (2024). Ethical tensions in human-AI companionship: A dialectical inquiry into Replika. Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2024.058
25.
CroesE. A.AntheunisM. L. (2021). Can we be friends with Mitsuku? A longitudinal study on the process of relationship formation between humans and a social chatbot. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(1), 279–300. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520959463
26.
CrolicC.ThomazF.HadiR.StephenA. T. (2022). Blame the bot: Anthropomorphism and anger in customer–chatbot interactions. Journal of Marketing, 86(1), 132–148. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429211045687
De la VallR. R. F.ArayaF. G. (2023). Exploring the benefits and challenges of AI-language learning tools. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention, 10(01), 7569–7576. https://doi.org/10.18535/ijsshi/v10i01.02
29.
DosovitskyG.BungeE. L. (2021). Bonding with bot: User feedback on a chatbot for social isolation. Frontiers in Digital Health, 3, 735053. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2021.735053
30.
EloundouT.ManningS.MishkinP.RockD. (2024). GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs. Science, 384(6702), 1306–1308. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adj0998
31.
EpleyN.WaytzA.CacioppoJ. T. (2007). On seeing human: A three-factor theory of anthropomorphism. Psychological Review, 114(4), 864. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.864
FarahM. F.RamadanZ.NassereddineY. (2024). When digital spaces matter: The influence of uniqueness and place attachment on self-identity expression with brands using generative AI on the metaverse. Psychology & Marketing, 41(12), 2965–2976. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22097
34.
Fernandez-BorsotG. (2025). Artificial intelligence and the future of otherness: What kind of other can an AI be for a human?AI & Society, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02281-2
GrahamS.DeppC.LeeE. E.NebekerC.TuX.KimH. C.JesteD. V. (2019). Artificial intelligence for mental health and mental illnesses: An overview. Current Psychiatry Reports, 21, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-019-1094-0
37.
GranovetterM. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. https://doi.org/10.1086/225469
38.
GraßmannC.SchermulyC. C. (2021). Coaching with artificial intelligence: Concepts and capabilities. Human Resource Development Review, 20(1), 106–126. https://doi.org/10.1177/1534484320982891
GuntukuS. C.YadenD. B.KernM. L.UngarL. H.EichstaedtJ. C. (2017). Detecting depression and mental illness on social media: An integrative review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 43–49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.07.005
41.
GuzmanA. L.LewisS. C. (2020). Artificial intelligence and communication: A human–machine communication research agenda. New Media & Society, 22(1), 70–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819858691
HohensteinJ.JungM. (2020). AI As a moral crumple zone: The effects of AI-mediated communication on attribution and trust. Computers in Human Behavior, 106, 106190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106190
45.
HohensteinJ.KizilcecR. F.DiFranzoD.AghajariZ.MieczkowskiH.LevyK.JungM. F. (2023). Artificial intelligence in communication impacts language and social relationships. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 5487. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30938-9
HuangH.LinH. C. (2024). ChatGPT as a life coach for professional identity formation in medical education. Educational Technology & Society, 27(3), 374–389. https://doi.org/10.30191/ETS.202407_27(3).TP03
48.
InksterB.SardaS.SubramanianV. (2018). An empathy-driven, conversational artificial intelligence agent (Wysa) for digital mental well-being: Real-world data evaluation mixed-methods study. JMIR mHealth and UHealth, 6(11), e12106. https://doi.org/10.2196/12106
KrautR.PattersonM.LundmarkV.KieslerS.MukophadhyayT.ScherlisW. (1998). Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being?American Psychologist, 53(9), 1017. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.53.9.1017
51.
LiH.ZhangR.LeeY. C.KrautR. E.MohrD. C. (2023). Systematic review and meta-analysis of AI-based conversational agents for promoting mental health and well-being. NPJ Digital Medicine, 6(1), 236. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-023-00979-5
LoebE. L.SternJ. A.CostelloM. A.AllenJ. P. (2021). With (out) a little help from my friends: Insecure attachment in adolescence, support-seeking, and adult negativity and hostility. Attachment & Human Development, 23(5), 624–642. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2020.1821722
54.
MallinckrodtB. (2010). The psychotherapy relationship as attachment: Evidence and implications. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 27(2), 262–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407509360905
55.
MaplesB.CeritM.VishwanathA.PeaR. (2024). Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots. npj Mental Health Research, 3(1), 4. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44184-023-00047-6
56.
MedillC. (2024). Integrating Artificial Intelligence tools into the formation of professional identity. University of St. Thomas Law Journal, 20(3), 702. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4554245
57.
MieczkowskiH.HancockJ. T.NaamanM.JungM.HohensteinJ. (2021). AI-mediated communication: Language use and interpersonal effects in a referential communication task. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW1), pp.1–14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449091
58.
MogaD. A.RughinişC. (2023, May). Idealized self-presentation through Al avatars. a case study of Lensa AI. 2023 24th International Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science (CSCS), IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CSCS59211.2023.00073
59.
MorrisR. R.KouddousK.KshirsagarR.SchuellerS. M. (2018). Towards an artificially empathic conversational agent for mental health applications: System design and user perceptions. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(6), e10148. https://doi.org/10.2196/10148
60.
NagyP.KolesB. (2014). My avatar and her beloved possession”: Characteristics of attachment to virtual objects. Psychology & Marketing, 31(12), 1122–1135. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20759
61.
NowlandR.NeckaE. A.CacioppoJ. T. (2018). Loneliness and social internet use: Pathways to reconnection in a digital world?Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(1), 70–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617713052
62.
OECD. (2024). Governing with artificial intelligence: Are governments ready? OECD Artificial Intelligence Papers, 20, June. https://doi.org/10.1787/26324bc2-en
63.
OlawadeD. B.WadaO. Z.OdetayoA.David-OlawadeA. C.AsaoluF.EberhardtJ. (2024). Enhancing mental health with Artificial Intelligence: Current trends and future prospects. Journal of Medicine, Surgery, and Public Health, 100099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.glmedi.2024.100099
64.
PaganiM.WindY. (2025). Unlocking marketing creativity using artificial intelligence. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 60(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/10949968241265855
65.
PaniB.CrawfordJ.AllenK. A. (2024). Can generative artificial intelligence foster belongingness, social support, and reduce loneliness? A conceptual analysis. Applications of Generative AI, 261–276. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-46238-2_13
66.
PataranutapornP.DanryV.LeongJ.PunpongsanonP.NovyD.MaesP.SraM. (2021). AI-generated characters for supporting personalized learning and well-being. Nature Machine Intelligence, 3(12), 1013–1022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-021-00417-9
67.
PentinaI.HancockT.XieT. (2023). Exploring relationship development with social chatbots: A mixed-method study of replika. Computers in Human Behavior, 140, 107600. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107600
RashkinH.SmithE. M.LiM.BoureauY.-L. (2019). Towards empathetic open-domain conversation models. Proceedings of the 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Association for Computational Linguistics (pp. 5370–5381). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/P19-1534
71.
RauschnabelP. A.AhuviaA. C. (2014). You’re so lovable: Anthropomorphism and brand love. Journal of Brand Management, 21(5), 372–395. https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2014.14
SezginE.McKayI. (2024). Behavioral health and generative AI: A perspective on future of therapies and patient care. npj Mental Health Research, 3(1), 25. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44184-024-00067-w
76.
SharpeB. T.SpoonerR. A. (2025). Dopamine-scrolling: A modern public health challenge requiring urgent attention. Perspectives in Public Health, 17579139251331914, https://doi.org/10.1177/17579139251331914
77.
ShaverP. R.HazanC. (1988). A biased overview of the study of love. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 5(4), 473–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407588054005
78.
SkjuveM.BrandtzaegP. B.FølstadA. (2024). Why do people use ChatGPT? Exploring user motivations for generative conversational AI. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v29i1.13541
79.
SkjuveM.FølstadA.FostervoldK. I.BrandtzaegP. B. (2022). A longitudinal study of human–chatbot relationships. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 168, 102903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2022.102903
80.
StarkeC.VenturaA.BerschC.ChaM.de VreeseC.DoeblerP.KöbisN. (2024). Risks and protective measures for synthetic relationships. Nature Human Behaviour, 8(10), 1834–1836. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02005-4
81.
SætraH. S. (2020). The parasitic nature of social AI: Sharing minds with the mindless. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 54(2), 308–326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-020-09523-6
82.
SuleymanM.BhaskarM. (2024). The Coming Wave AI, Power and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma. Crown Publisher.
83.
SundarS. S. (2020). Rise of machine agency: A framework for studying the psychology of human–AI interaction (HAII). Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25(1), 74–88. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmz026
84.
TaV.GriffithC.BoatfieldC.WangX.CivitelloM.BaderH.LoggarakisA. (2020). User experiences of social support from companion chatbots in everyday contexts: Thematic analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(3), e16235. https://doi.org/10.2196/16235
85.
TanW. K.YangC. Y. (2022). An exploration of MMORPG in-game virtual-item contribution to game enjoyment from the perspectives of purchase behavior and psychological ownership. Computers in Human Behavior, 134, 107303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107303
TianL.OviattS. (2021). A taxonomy of social errors in human-robot interaction. ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction (THRI), 10(2), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1145/3439720
89.
TurkleS. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books.
90.
WangC.BoermanS. C.KroonA. C.MöllerJ.de VreeseC. H. (2024). The artificial intelligence divide: Who is the most vulnerable?New Media & Society, 14614448241232345. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241232345
91.
WatkinsR. D.Denegri-KnottJ.MolesworthM. (2016). The relationship between ownership and possession: Observations from the context of digital virtual goods. Journal of Marketing Management, 32(1-2), 44–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2015.1089308
92.
WaytzA.CacioppoJ.EpleyN. (2010). Who sees human? The stability and importance of individual differences in anthropomorphism. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(3), 219–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610369336
93.
WeinsteinN.ItzchakovG.ManiaciM. R. (2025). Exploring the connecting potential of AI: Integrating human interpersonal listening and parasocial support into human-computer interactions. Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans, 4, 100149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbah.2025.100149
94.
WelivitaA.XieY.PuP. (2021, November). A large-scale dataset for empathetic response generation. Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (pp. 1251–1264). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2021.emnlp-main.96
XieT.PentinaI. (2022). Attachment theory as a framework to understand relationships with social chatbots: a case study of Replika. https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2022.258
97.
YangF.OshioA. (2025). Using attachment theory to conceptualize and measure the experiences in human-AI relationships. Current Psychology, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-025-07917-6
98.
ZhangZ.GuoF.FangC.ChenJ. (2025). Let me hold your hand: Effects of anthropomorphism and touch behavior on self-disclosure intention, attachment, and cerebral activity towards AI mental health counselors. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2024.2446502
99.
ZhaoD.SunX.ShanB.YangZ.YangJ.LiuH.HiroshiY. (2023). Research status of elderly-care robots and safe human-robot interaction methods. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 17, 1291682. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1291682
100.
ZhaoY.ZhaoC. (2025). From Ai to self-concept: Leveraging ChatGPT for personal development. Available at SSRN 4970712. https://ssrn.com/abstract=4970712
101.
ZhuY.LiangJ.ZhaoY. (2025). Expert or partner: The matching effect of AI chatbot roles in different service contexts. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 71, 101496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2025.101496
