Socially Embedded Technologies. Feelings, Visibility, and Frictions in Digital Markets Dynamics
(A2026-132597)

AUTHORS

Gil Appel, George Washington University/George Washington University; BARAK LIBAI, Reichman University; Eitan Muller, NYU; MICHAEL HAENLEIN, ESCP Business School/University of Liverpool Management School; Boas Bamberger, University of Cologne; Andreas Lanz, University of Basel

ABSTRACT

Digital markets promise frictionless growth, yet adoption remains profoundly shaped by feelings, social visibility, and authenticity frictions in innovation adoption. This special session brings together four empirical papers that highlight from different angles how people feel, see, and trust in AI enabled, platform mediated digital markets, and particularly, how it affects market dynamics. The papers enable us to see a deeper picture of these markets where individual wellbeing and authenticity concerns are linked to platform design choices. It helps understand the roots of diffusion patterns across categories like EVs, AVs, GenAI, creator brands, and peer-to-peer payments. Jiang, Zhang, Chen, Men, and Haenlein show in “Feeling AI, Feeling Better: Companion Chatbots and Psychological Well Being” that everyday interactions with companion chatbots on a large Chinese platform reduce loneliness, stress, and depressive symptoms, and that specific design choices such as persona compassion amplify these effects. Bamberger, Lanz, and Pollman-Fervers investigate “Creator Brands” and the growing shift from third party endorsements to creators launching their own brands. Using longitudinal field data, repertory grid interviews, and a choice based conjoint with creators, they reveal a systematic gap between stated authenticity ideals and revealed preferences under resource constraints and propose the “Affordable Authenticity Loss” hypothesis. Appel, Libai, and Muller broaden the lens in “Why EVs, AVs, and GenAI Still Diffuse Slowly in a Digital Age: Frictions in the Adoption of New Tech” by documenting how network effects, chasms, and WOM decay remain pervasive in 21st century diffusion data and through the focal cases of EVs, AVs, and GenAI, show how these frictions interact to delay takeoff despite strong digital connectivity. Finally, Zhang, Loupos, and Schweidel’s paper “When Payments Go Social: How Public Transaction Visibility Drives Engagement on Peer to Peer Payment Platforms” develops a dynamic structural model and an instrument for Venmo data to quantify the causal utility of public transactions, demonstrating that social visibility provisions substantially increase engagement and long run user base size. Together, these papers offer a coherent, multi-level view of innovations in digital markets. They connect psychological wellbeing, authenticity management, platform visibility design, and diffusion modeling in ways that speak directly to current debates on AI governance, creator entrepreneurship, and digital platform design. By juxtaposing evidence from AI companions, creator brands, consumer technologies, and social payments, the session addresses scholars of digital marketing, platforms, and innovation, and is designed to spark cross category debate on how to design AI intensive and platform mediated markets that are both scalable and sustainable for users, firms, and society.