Generative AI and the Future of Digital Impression Management

This chapter explores how generative AI (GenAI) technologies are transforming the landscape of digital impression management by reconfiguring how individuals construct, perform, and optimize their online identities. Using an interdisciplinary framework grounded in Goffman's dramaturgical theory, affordance theory, social identity theory, and emotional labor theory, the chapter introduces the ABCDE model, Appearance, Behavior, Communication, Digital Presence, and Emotional Balance, to analyze the socio-technical dimensions of AI-mediated self-presentation. Drawing on an empirical audit of 1,200 GenAI-generated professional profiles, the study reveals how algorithmic systems both enable and constrain identity expression, often reinforcing cultural, gendered, and occupational biases. The findings underscore the dual role of GenAI as both a democratizing tool and a vector of standardization, raising urgent ethical, psychological, and design challenges for equitable digital selfhood.