In recent times, interest in AI's transformative potential in online advertising has surged. This review critically examines AI's role in enhancing customer experience (CX) across various business applications, identifying key themes, assessing AI-powered CX impact, and highlighting future research directions. The study finds that integrating AI into CRM brings significant transformation. AI enables personalized interactions, strengthens customer engagement, provides data-driven insights, and facilitates informed decision-making. Four central themes emerge: personalized service, enhanced engagement, data-driven strategy, and intelligent decision-making. Challenges include data privacy, ethics, and potential negative experiences. This chapter contributes by synthesizing the current state, exploring themes, and advocating responsible AI implementation to guide organizations in navigating opportunities and challenges.

In recent times, there has been a surge of interest in the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly within the realm of online advertising. This research focuses on the critical examination of AI’s role in enhancing customer experience (CX) across diverse business applications. The aim is to identify key themes, assess the impact of AI-powered CX initiatives, and highlight directions for future research. Employing a systematic and comprehensive approach, the study analyzes academic publications, industry reports, and case studies to extract theoretical frameworks, empirical findings, and practical insights. The findings underscore a significant transformation catalyzed by AI integration into Customer Relationship Management (CRM). AI enables personalized interactions, fortifies customer engagement through interactive agents, provides data-driven insights, and empowers informed decision-making throughout the customer journey. Four central themes emerge: personalized service, enhanced engagement, data-driven strategy, and intelligent decision-making. However, challenges such as data privacy concerns, ethical considerations, and potential negative experiences with poorly implemented AI persist. This article contributes significantly to the discourse on AI in CRM by synthesizing the current state, exploring key themes, and suggesting research avenues. It advocates for responsible AI implementation, emphasizing ethical considerations and guiding organizations in navigating opportunities and challenges.

As the concept of sustainability has gained significant attention in recent years as a critical response to escalating environmental challenges and societal shifts, the influence of virtual influencers in promoting sustainability has become a focal point of inquiry. The purpose of this research is to explore the prevalent content themes utilised by virtual influencers to promote sustainability and examine the communication and advocacy strategies they employed in conveying messages related to social and environmental causes. With a qualitative approach and content analysis methodology, the study selects four virtual influencers known for advocating sustainability and analyses a dataset of 137 Instagram posts spanning two years (2022, 2023). Findings indicate that virtual influencers actively engage in advocating for wildlife and nature conservation as the most popular theme, with two distinct communication strategies identified: raising awareness by problematising threats to wildlife and showcasing the beauty of nature and conservation efforts. Additionally, the research uncovers specific tactics employed by virtual influencers, including storytelling, visual content, interactive questions, and inspiring statements, to effectively communicate and advocate for sustainability. This research contributes valuable insights to the dynamic landscape of virtual influencers’ sustainability promotion efforts on social media.