AI as Market Infrastructure: How Misinformation and Automation Inequality Shape Democratic Performance and Economic Wellbeing

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the market-organizing infrastructures that coordinate exchange, reshaping consumer information environments and the allocation of economic value. Drawing on marketing systems theory and consumer emancipation scholarship, we theorize perceived misinformation threat and perceived automation inequality as system-level diagnostics that erode perceived democratic performance and, through it, consumers’ perceived economic wellbeing. We further theorize national AI interpretive climates as contextual amplifiers that condition how threat cues translate into institutional skepticism or optimism. A multilevel analysis across 22 nations supports the institutional-confidence pathway and the amplifying role of collective AI beliefs. By repositioning AI from firm-level tool to structural infrastructure, the study clarifies how AI-driven market externalities become consequential for consumer welfare, advancing macromarketing theory on emancipation, marketing governance, consumer agency, and public policy in AI-mediated markets.