Investigating the effect of artificial intelligence on customer relationship management performance in e-commerce enterprises

Despite the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in improving customer relationships, AI usage in enabling customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities and, in turn, enhancing CRM performance has not yet been investigated. This study from the IT-enabled organizational capabilities perspective investigates the impact of AI usage on CRM performance and the mediating effect of CRM capabilities. We tested our core proposition and theory-driven research model using data collected from a sample of 193 e-commerce enterprises in China. The empirical results indicate that AI usage positively impacts CRM performance and that CRM capabilities positively mediate their relationship. Thus, this paper contributes to IS research with an eloquent theoretical explanation and strong empirical evidence on why e-commerce enterprises deploy AI initiatives to improve their CRM capabilities and performance.