Trust or Skepticism? Consumer Responses to Generative AI-Driven Green Marketing Communications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/trjtm2026.v06.n02.004Keywords:
Generative AI, Green Marketing, Consumer Trust, Greenwashing Skepticism, Descriptive ResearchAbstract
The fast adoption of Generative AI in corporate sustainability communication has inevitably created a new paradox in modern-day green marketing: on one hand, brands can use AI to create highly personalized and emotionally engaging ecological messaging on scale, and on the other hand, there is an increased suspicion among consumers regarding the accuracy of AI-generated environmental claims. Descriptive research is used to investigate the nature and distribution of consumer's reactions (trust and skepticism towards the Greenwashing) in the context of the communication of green marketing with the help of AI in urban consumers in India. The study has been conducted across four big urban cities of India with the use of structured questionnaire, which is administered to 400 respondents across four cities; in this way, the prevalence of such responses has been mapped across the four different segments of respondents, the co-occurrence of such responses has been mapped and the mediating role of brand transparency and message credibility, as perceived by these respondents, has been documented. The findings indicate that the combined effect of curiosity and suspicion arises when meeting green content generated with AI, that the greenwashing skepticism is much higher among the respondents with a higher degree of digital literacy and previous experience with greenwashing, and that the disclosure of the use of AI has a significant influence on the audience's perception of the content as being trustworthy. The paper concludes with a descriptive framework that can take into account the dual response dynamics of consumer communication on sustainability issues when the media is shaped by AI and offers proposals for practice and future causal research.
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