Food Traceability System Design Incorporating AI Chatbots: Promoting Consumer Engagement with Prepared Foods

Industrialized processing has increased the complexity of the food supply chain. Concerns about food-related risks have increased consumer interest in food traceability. Traceability systems are regarded as effective tools for mitigating information asymmetry and enhancing food quality and safety. However, the design of traditional food traceability systems overlooks the risk of information overload. Based on information overload theory, this study designs an artificial intelligence (AI) traceability assistant as an innovative tool to optimize traditional food traceability systems and examines its positive effects. This study focuses on prepared foods as the research objects, selecting three types of prepared foods (Kung Pao chicken, fish-flavored shredded pork, and pickled fish) and three food traceability tasks (preservatives, sweeteners, and drug residues) as experimental stimuli. Through three online scenario experiments, 747 valid responses were collected. This study explores the impact of AI traceability assistant design on positive consumer engagement behaviors and its underlying mechanism. The results reveal that the AI traceability assistant significantly promotes positive consumer engagement behaviors. This positive effect is mediated by perceived system ease of use. Furthermore, perceived product risk positively moderates the impact of the AI traceability assistant on perceived system ease of use. Perceived product risk strengthens the mediating effect of perceived system ease of use. This study contributes a novel theoretical perspective for research on food traceability systems and reveals the underlying mechanism through which the AI traceability assistant exerts its positive effect. In practice, it provides actionable guidance for food producers implementing digital traceability solutions.