Developing an Integrated Framework for Experience Marketing in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Metaverse Convergence

Background and Purpose: The rapid proliferation of transformative technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) and immersive environments (Metaverse), is fundamentally reshaping the customer engagement paradigm in e-commerce. Despite independent research streams in AI for marketing and the Metaverse in isolation, a significant gap exists in the form of a comprehensive, integrative conceptual framework that elucidates the synergistic potential of these technologies to create a seamless customer journey and deliver exceptional experience. This article aims to propose a holistic integration model—the Smart Integrated Experience Paradigm (SIEP)—that demonstrates how four key AI applications in commerce—modernization and business model expansion, dynamic Product Experience Management (PXM), order intelligence, and secure payments—can be unified with the immersive and interactive capabilities of the Metaverse to realize a next-generation form of Experience Marketing. Methodology: This research employs a qualitative methodology and a Grounded Theory approach, utilizing Systematic Content Analysis. The study corpus comprises peer-reviewed academic literature, leading industry reports, and documented implementation case studies from the period 2020 to 2024. Through the stages of open, axial, and selective coding, fundamental components, causal relationships, and emergent strategies from the literature are synthesized and organized into a novel paradigmatic framework. Findings: The proposed SIEP framework is structured across three constitutive layers: 1. The Intelligent Infrastructure Layer: Encompassing the core role of AI in processing big data, predicting customer behavior, and enabling real-time, hyper-personalized processes. 2. The Immersive Interaction Layer: Positioning the Metaverse as the platform for product/service visualization, simulation, and embodied interaction, transcending physical limitations. 3. The Integration and Value Co-Creation Layer: Where the preceding layers converge to generate novel value propositions, including Context-Aware Personalization, Low-Risk Virtual Experimentation, and Shared-Experience-Based Loyalty. The framework elucidates how this convergence drives business model innovation, deepens customer relationships, and establishes a sustainable competitive advantage. Originality/Value: The originality of this paper lies in the creation of a novel and actionable theoretical model that bridges the gap between previously siloed research on AI and the Metaverse. The SIEP framework provides marketing executives and digital strategists with a practical roadmap for investment and planning in this era of technological convergence. Furthermore, by establishing a robust theoretical linkage between core Experience Marketing concepts and cutting-edge technological advancements, this article lays a solid foundation for future research into measuring the efficacy and broader implications of this paradigm across diverse markets, with particular relevance for emerging markets in the Middle East.