AI agency drives college students’ entrepreneurial thinking through human sense of agency in human and ai symbiosis

Abstract

Abstract As artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly penetrates education and entrepreneurial practice, cultivating students’ entrepreneurial thinking in a “human-AI symbiotic” environment has become a crucial issue in entrepreneurship education. Based on symbiotic agency theory and triadic reciprocal determinism, this study constructs a theoretical model of “AI agency—human sense of agency—entrepreneurial thinking,” using opportunity recognition and creativity as the core dimensions of entrepreneurial thinking to examine how AI agency is associated with college students’ entrepreneurial cognition. Based on a sample of 972 college students, the study employs a hybrid research method combining SLR, SEM, and fsQCA. The results show that: (1) AI agency is composed of three dimensions: cognitive support, interaction support, and action support, forming a stable structure of human-AI symbiotic environment in entrepreneurial learning contexts. (2) AI agency is positively associated with entrepreneurial thinking both directly and indirectly through the human sense of agency. (3) High-level entrepreneurial thinking is not associated with a single factor alone but with configurations of multiple conditions, with interaction support and sense of agency playing stable core roles. (4) Furthermore, creativity and opportunity recognition exhibit different generative logics. The study theoretically elevates AI from a tool to a technological partner and capability community in entrepreneurial learning, and provides insights for the design of AI instructional courses in entrepreneurship education.