Artificial Intelligence and Consumer Emancipation: Reframing Socially Responsible Marketing in Algorithmic Markets

Abstract

Artificial intelligence increasingly structures how consumers search, decide, and participate in markets. Yet most AI-in-marketing research adopts a firm-centric and performance-oriented perspective, offering limited theorization of its broader societal consequences. This commentary reframes AI as a socio-technical market infrastructure that redistributes power and shapes consumer agency. Drawing on macromarketing and socially responsible marketing traditions, we position consumer emancipation as a normative criterion for evaluating algorithmic markets. We develop a conceptual framework identifying transparency, fairness, and consumer control as governance mechanisms that enhance autonomy, trust, and capability, thereby enabling more inclusive and accountable market outcomes. By shifting attention from efficiency to emancipation, the paper advances a conceptual foundation for assessing responsible AI and outlines directions for future macromarketing research on algorithmic systems.