The impact of AI-powered service on customer continuance usage intention in E-retailing: An extended expectation...

Despite the rapid integration of AI-powered services into e-retailing, many firms continue to face challenges in meeting customer expectations and sustaining long-term usage. Addressing this issue, the present study investigates the determinants of customers' continuance usage intention by developing and empirically testing an extended Expectation-Confirmation Model (ECM). A snowball non-probability sampling method was employed to collect data from 542 Vietnamese e-retail customers, and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to validate the research model and examine the proposed relationships. The findings reveal a sequential mechanism in which AI-powered service quality significantly enhances customer experience (O = 0.770, p < 0.001), perceived usefulness (O = 0.161, p < 0.001), and perceived problem-solving ability (O = 0.695, p < 0.001). These cognitive and experiential evaluations subsequently strengthen expectation confirmation and customer satisfaction. Notably, customer satisfaction and perceived usefulness emerge as the strongest predictors of continuance usage intention (O = 0.371 and O = 0.279, respectively; p < 0.001), with customer experience playing a central role in this process. This research extends the ECM by integrating AI service performance, multi-dimensional customer experience (encompassing hedonic aspects such as enjoyment and engagement, as well as recognition aspects such as feeling valued and understood), and perceived problem-solving ability into a unified framework tailored for the e-retailing context. The findings highlight an important managerial implication: sustaining users' continued engagement with AI-powered services requires simultaneous investment in both technical performance and the quality of the customer experience and satisfaction these systems generate.