From Technology to Experience: Evolution of Augmented Reality in Consumer Behaviour – A Bibliometric and Topic Modelling Review

Shashank Hazarika, Heera Barpujary

Abstract


The implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) technology in digital retail brings about new interactive experiences that allow customers to engage with products through virtual displays. Despite the increasing academic interest, research on how consumers behave with AR technology remains fragmented as scholars have yet to connect its fundamental framework with their research progress. This review fills the gap by performing a systematic literature review based on the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, while also using bibliometric analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling to fulfil the research objectives. It analysed 116 Scopus-indexed articles that were published between 2014 and 2025. The results show five main research domains which focus on technology-enabled customer experience, AR-based purchasing behaviour, brand interaction, value creation through virtual environments and user experience design. The bibliometric analysis reveals top academic journals, key researchers and research networks, whereas developed nations account for most research outputs and international collaborations are on the rise. The results indicate that the focus of research has deviated from technological adoption studies to experiential and behavioural research. The current study offers a holistic, structured synthesis of AR-related consumer behaviour studies that can benefit academic research and business applications in digital retail environments.


Keywords


Augmented Reality, Consumer Behaviour, Digital Retail, Immersive Technologies, Topic Modelling

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References


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