As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into advertising, it is changing how campaigns are created, how consumers experience advertising and how researchers study it.
Yang Feng, associate professor of communications at Cal State Fullerton, is helping advance this conversation through her research on AI in advertising and marketing communication, with a particular focus on human-AI collaboration and the responsible use of emerging technologies.
Building on this work, Feng is serving as a guest editor of a new special issue of the International Journal of Advertising, a leading peer-reviewed journal in advertising. Titled “AI in Advertising: New Directions in Practice, Consumer Responses, and Research Methods,” the special issue examines AI’s rapidly evolving role across the advertising ecosystem, including human-AI collaboration, AI-supported creativity and strategic decision-making, consumer responses to AI-enabled advertising, and the growing use of AI throughout the research process.
Feng co-edited the special issue with two other researchers: Quan Xie, associate professor of digital advertising at Southern Methodist University, and Joanna Strycharz, assistant professor of persuasive communication at the University of Amsterdam. All three are experts on the intersection of AI with digital advertising, consumer behavior and privacy.
Through articles throughout the journal’s special issue, scholars are encouraged to consider broader theoretical, practical and methodological questions, including how humans and AI work together, how consumers respond to AI-mediated persuasion, and how AI is being used in research ideation, stimulus creation, data collection, and analysis.
These questions also have broader relevance for the CSUF community as students and faculty across disciplines increasingly encounter the use of AI into the classroom, workplace and research process. The special issue contributes to ongoing conversations about how universities may prepare students to work effectively and responsibly with AI while addressing issues of ethics, transparency, validity and human judgment.
The special issue invites scholars to contribute research on AI in advertising practice, consumer responses and research methods.