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Although current designs do not significantly improve sales over no live streaming, incorporating behavioral realism\u2014especially enhanced real-time question and answer (Q&amp;A)\u2014can boost sales by 25%, making digital streamers as effective as human hosts. Visual upgrades and human-like voices also help but to a lesser degree. Importantly, not all AI-driven enhancements deliver immediate returns, and imitating human scripts does not guarantee success. Retailers should focus on dynamic human-AI interaction features that drive engagement and trust, such as real-time Q&amp;A and interactive giveaways. Designers are encouraged to integrate multiple realism features to maximize effectiveness while managing cost and scalability. These findings offer actionable guidance for retailers and platform designers seeking to leverage AI effectively and cost efficiently in live streaming commerce.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1287\/isre.2023.0024","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,26]],"date-time":"2025-08-26T15:36:13Z","timestamp":1756222573000},"page":"824-841","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Artificial Intelligence-Powered Digital Streamers in Online Retail: Empirical Insights and Design Strategies from Experiments"],"prefix":"10.1287","volume":"37","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6526-2242","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yahui","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Business, Nanjing Audit University, 211815 Nanjing, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5531-9340","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lei","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Operations and Decision Technologies, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4707-5136","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shuai","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University, 200051 Shanghai, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6219-992X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yanwen","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Marketing and Behavioral Science Division, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z2, Canada"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"109","reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s12525-020-00414-7"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.techfore.2022.121786"},{"key":"B3","unstructured":"Alizila S (2020) What is Taobao Live? 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