Mikhailova, Aleksandra

My research focuses on customer-facing technologies and AI-driven transformations within the retail sector. As AI-enabled applications and devices increasingly rely on consumer data, a significant part of my dissertation explores how this growing demand for data impacts consumers' perceptions of privacy and influences their evaluations of brands and services.

Moreover, applying Cultural analytics methods and perspective, I analyze consumer-generated digital artifacts—such as online reviews, memes, and forum discussions—alongside broader media discourse to uncover the technological, market, social and ideological forces that (re)shape consumer behavior. I also examine how AI interprets and recontextualizes these artifacts, generating new meanings that are communicated back to consumers, and how consumers respond to these AI-constructed interpretations.

In addition to my role as a PhD candidate at the Center for Retailing, I am affiliated with the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems, and Software Program—Humanity and Society (WASP-HS), Sweden's foremost research initiative in AI. I am also a part of the Swedish National Doctoral School in Digital Humanities: Data, Culture, and Society – Critical Perspectives (DASH).