AI-Enabled Personalization and Customer Loyalty in Digital Platforms: The Mediating Roles of Experience and Trust

Abstract

Artificial intelligence has become an important component of customer relationship management in digital platforms, where algorithmic recommendations, tailored offers, and automated service interactions shape customer perceptions and relationship outcomes. This study proposes an empirically testable framework for examining how AI-enabled personalization influences customer loyalty through customer experience and trust. The model treats AI personalization as the principal exogenous construct, customer experience and trust as mediating relational mechanisms, and customer loyalty as the final endogenous outcome. A quantitative cross-sectional survey design is proposed for users of e-commerce, food-delivery, mobility, travel, subscription, and other digitally mediated platform services. Data are collected through a structured questionnaire using multi-item Likert-scale measures adapted from established literature. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is employed to assess indicator reliability, internal consistency, convergent validity, discriminant validity, direct structural paths, mediation effects, explained variance, effect sizes, and predictive performance. The proposed model evaluates direct relationships from AI personalization to customer experience, trust, and loyalty, as well as indirect paths through customer experience, trust, and sequential experience–trust mediation. The theoretical framework suggests that personalization is more likely to generate sustainable loyalty when customers perceive the resulting interactions as relevant, convenient, and valuable and when the platform maintains confidence regarding reliability, integrity, and responsible use of personal data. Because no primary dataset is supplied, the study specifies expected directional relationships and a transparent PLS-SEM reporting framework rather than fabricated empirical coefficients. The proposed methodology provides a rigorous basis for evaluating the relational mechanisms through which AI personalization can contribute to long-term customer loyalty in digital platform environments.