Title: SUSTAINABILITY OF INFLUENCE MARKETING: ROLE OF AI IN DETECTING AUTHENTIC VS GREENWASHED CONTENT
Author: Manilakshmi. S and Dr. C. Vethirajan
Abstract:

The rapid growth of influencer marketing has positioned and acted as powerful vehicle to drive brand communication, with sustainability emerging as a central theme used to build consumer trust and engagement. However, as more influencers and brands publish sustainability themed content, concerns over greenwashing the practice of overstating and misrepresenting environmental credentials to have intensified, and undermine the credibility of the influencer marketing ecosystem. AI becomes the promising factor as a emerging solution to the credibility gap. The study examines with the secondary data collected from the period of 2021 to 2025. The data will help to investigate the relationship between the volume of the sustainability focused influencer content, an AI based greenwashing risk score, a greenwash index and authentication index. Using Correlation and regression analysis the study finds that as genuine sustainability posts increased from 12% to 33%. The greenwash index declined from 42% to 29%. While the AI greenwash risk score fell from 58 to 43 and the authentication index rose from 4.8 to 6.8. correlation results show the extremely strong positive relationship among all four variables. The regression analysis confirmed that both hypothesized relationships are statistically significant.
The finding suggests that as brands and influencers publish more substantiated, evidence-based sustainability content, greenwashing risk decreases while perceived authenticity increases. The study concludes that AI functions as a credibility layer within influencer marketing, helping distinguish authentic sustainability communication from misleading claims and offers suggestions for integrating AI driven detection into content approval workflows.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability Index, AI Greenwash Risk Score, Influencer Marketer, Authentication Index, Greenwash Index and brand Communication.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38193/IJRCMS.2026.8444
PDF Download
Date of Publication: 10-08-2026
Download Publication Certificate: PDF
Published Vol & Issue: Volume 8 Issue 4 July-August 2026