Revolutionizing Storytelling: Releasing the Power of AI-Generated Product Narratives by ChatGPT on Consumers’ Sustainable Fashion Behavior

Due to the fashion industry being among the largest markets globally, it is highly important to address the sustainability issues embedded in fast fashion in a timely and systematic manner while it is not too late. Considering the growing importance and public demand for sustainable practices in the fashion industry, the slow fashion movement commenced. Slow fashion refers to sustainable fashion consumption which predominantly aims to substitute constantly changing fashion trends with timeless and high-quality garments with longer life cycles. Furthermore, this research focused on the power of AI-generated narratives in persuading people, specifically enhancing their Narrative Transportation and sustainable fashion behavior. Thus, considering the demand for sustainability, yet the increasing impulsive purchasing among consumers, the key objective of this research is to examine which product description of the slow fashion item increases Narrative Transportation, Attitudes, Perceived Behavioral Control, Purchase Intentions, and Purchase Behavior most successfully among Lithuanian consumers. Hence, the study utilizes both the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Narrative Transportation Theory. It is essential to guide the fashion industry towards a shift to slow fashion and provide small and sustainable businesses with effective measures to increase their sales while simultaneously spreading the message of sustainable fashion and encouraging consumers to quit its fast counterpart. To generate the narratives, a recently developed AI chatbot, ChatGPT, was utilized to create history and sustainability narratives. Although multiple research questions are addressed in the current research, the most fundamental research question is: “To what extent do the AI-generated Narrative Types of a slow fashion garment description influence Lithuanian consumers’ Purchase Intentions and Purchase Behavior of a product?” To investigate the desired phenomena, a quantitative quasi-experiment was conducted, namely a 2 x 2 between-subject factorial design using an online questionnaire. Each participant randomly received the manipulation, which was followed by a set of different questions, relating to the theories. In total, N = 220 valid responses were collected with the Lithuanian sample being relatively young (M = 24.34) and the majority of the respondents being women (78.2%). As a result, it was found that no significant differences existed across four conditions in influencing consumers’ purchase intentions and behavior. However, the significant and positive relationships between the Narrative Transportation Theory and people’s purchase intentions and purchase behavior demonstrate the power of engaging AI-generated narratives that have the capacity of persuading readers to purchase sustainable fashion items. Additionally, the sustainability narrative performed most successfully in creating a positive attitude toward the slow fashion item as well as in transporting consumers to the narrative world. This finding reaffirms the immense importance of implementing an engaging (AI-generated) narrative about a product’s sustainability rather than merely presenting factual information which potentially fails to engage the consumers, and thus encourage their action.