When AI Serves a Purpose: How Virtuous Goals Foster Empowerment, Delight, and AI Adoption

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in applications, yet extant research has primarily focused on AI performance and task characteristics, emphasizing functional outcomes such as efficiency and accuracy. Comparatively less attention has been devoted to the goals pursued by AI systems and how these goals shape consumer experience. In particular, little is known about whether AI systems designed to pursue virtuous or prosocial goals, such as promoting environmentally responsible behavior, beyond functional performance. Addressing this gap, this research investigates how AI goal framing (functional vs. virtuous) influences consumer empowerment, delight, and downstream behavioral intentions in the context of AI-powered applications. We conduct a field study based on the development of a real AI-powered mobile application designed to assist consumers in managing food consumption. Participants interact with the app in a realistic usage context before reporting their perceptions and intentions. We develop and test a sequential mediation model in which virtuous AI goals, compared to functional goals, exert a stronger positive effect on consumer empowerment. Higher perceived empowerment, in turn, enhances consumer delight, which subsequently drives favorable behavioral outcomes, such as intention to adopt the AI-powered application and intention to engage in positive word of mouth.