Purpose: To examine the impact of artificial intelligence-assisted social media marketing (AISMM)on the performance of startup businesses of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach: A survey technique was employed whereby primary and secondary data was collected, analyzed, and interpreted. Participants involved business operators or employees of start-up businesses and SMEs in the Saudi Arabian context. Data were analyzed by using partial least square-structure equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings: AISMM, which exhibits an increasing trend among start-up businesses and SMEs in Saudi Arabia, accounts for an overall increase in the number of customers and customer bases and an additional tertiary effect of increased profitability. AISMM increases the effective business management and SMEs performance (SMEP). Moreover, effective business management increases the SMEP Originality/value: This study is quite unique as it is investigated that AISMM practices has significant role to enhance SMEP in which effective business management playing a mediating role. Implications: The practitioners can get help from this study to increase the performance by decreasing various problems of marketing by using AISMM. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
