AI Service Investment and Information Disclosure Under Financing Strategies in a Tourism Live-Streaming Supply Chain: The Roles of Government Regulation and Platform Altruism

Live-streaming plays a vital role in tourism product marketing. Consumers often struggle to obtain sufficient product information through live-streaming, leading to information asymmetry and low trust, which hinder transaction efficiency. To address these challenges, an increasing number of live-streaming platforms are adopting artificial intelligence (AI) services to help consumers better understand tourism products. However, investment in AI services requires substantial financial resources, while suppliers’ information disclosure directly affects the transparency of tourism product information. A Stackelberg game model examines how government regulation and financing strategies shape supplier information disclosure, platform AI investment, and supply chain profits. The results show the following: (1) The platform’s financing choice is not determined solely by financing costs. The relative advantage of supplier financing over bank financing depends jointly on relative financing rates, consumers’ sensitivity to AI services, and the platform’s altruistic preference; (2) Neither strategy dominates. Subsidies are more advantageous when reward-and-penalty intensity is low, whereas reward-and-penalty regulation becomes preferable as the intensity increases. (3) Platform altruism boosts AI investment and supplier profit but may reduce platform profit when commissions are low or consumers are less AI-sensitive. These findings provide theoretical guidance for live-streaming platforms to optimize their financing and AI service investment decisions, and for governments to design differentiated information disclosure regulations.