Deepfake Endorsements: Ethical Concerns and their Influence on Consumer Behaviour

The rapid development in Artificial Intelligence had led to the growth of deepfake endorsements. They digitally manipulate/ synthetically generate the representations of individuals which are used to in advertising products and services in the market. Deepfake advertisements are cost efficient, creative and flexible but they give the raise to issues like ethical concerns like trust, consent, ownership and deception. This study gives insights to ethical concerns associated with deep fake endorsements and its impact on consumer purchase intensions. In this study uses primary data collected from 150 active social media consumers with a structured questionnaire through google forms. This study gives an insight towards how ethical awareness, perceived trustworthiness, consent transparency and authenticity affect consumer attitudes and purchase intensions towards the product/service. Through the findings it is found that ethical concerns reduce consumer trust and negatively influence the purchase decisions when deepfake endorsements are perceived as deceptive. However, to some extent transparency and disclosure moderate the negative perception of consumers towards the deepfake advertisements. This study provides a practical insight to the advertisers, policy makers and digital platforms to use Artificial Intelligence driven endorsement in a responsible manner. This study highlights that to retain the consumer’s trust in AI driven advertising practices it is necessary to have ethical guidelines, consent mechanisms and transparent communications.