The Role of Flow Experience and Perceived Switching Costs in Users' Continuance Intention to use AI Drawing Tools: A Task-Based Analysis

This study investigates the factors influencing continuance intention to use AI drawing tools, with a focus on users' perceived value and flow experience during use. By designing two task scenarios, AI-generated creation and AIassisted editing, this study constructs a theoretical model of perceived value-emotional immersion-behavioral intention and examines the effects of perceived value, perceived switching cost, and flow experience. The study uses the structural equation modeling (SEM), and the data is from 300 Chinese AI drawing tool users, and the analysis is completed using SPSS27.0 and SmartPLS. The results indicate that (1) flow experience is a partial mediator in both task situation. (2) In the AI-assisted editing task, the perceived switching cost has a significantly negative regulating effect on the relation between the perceived functional value and the flow experience. This research extends the contextual applicability of perceived value theory and flow experience within AI-driven creative domains. These practical implications offers new insights for AI developers concerning the power of flow experience and perceived switching cost.