Translating the Hype: A qualitative study of how AI agents are framed for Swedish marketing professionals
(2026) SKOK11 20261Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Between 2024 and 2026, AI providers launched dedicated agent products and presented them as tools that can plan, decide and carry out marketing tasks with greater independence than earlier generative AI. On LinkedIn, Swedish marketing executives and industry opinion leaders produce a parallel discourse that reaches the same professional audience. This study examines how the relationship between these two sources shapes the communicative environment in which Swedish marketers form expectations about AI agents. Sweden serves as a useful case because of its high degree of digitalisation, national AI strategy and position within the EU regulatory environment. The study combines two qualitative framing analyses of nine provider documents from... (More)
- Between 2024 and 2026, AI providers launched dedicated agent products and presented them as tools that can plan, decide and carry out marketing tasks with greater independence than earlier generative AI. On LinkedIn, Swedish marketing executives and industry opinion leaders produce a parallel discourse that reaches the same professional audience. This study examines how the relationship between these two sources shapes the communicative environment in which Swedish marketers form expectations about AI agents. Sweden serves as a useful case because of its high degree of digitalisation, national AI strategy and position within the EU regulatory environment. The study combines two qualitative framing analyses of nine provider documents from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google and fifteen LinkedIn posts from five Swedish opinion leaders. The analysis draws on Sociology of Expectations and Expectations-Confirmation Theory, and the coding framework builds on Vicsek's three dimensions of fictional expectations, extended through inductive sub-codes developed during coding. The findings show that opinion leaders rework provider framings through three patterns: translation into professional categories such as onboarding and tool stacks, selective adoption that filters out the most categorical provider claims and counterframes that introduce measurability, boundaries and hands-on authority. The study contributes refinements to Vicsek's framework, suggests that hype is not only intensified or downplayed as it moves between discourses but selectively replaced and offers marketers a vocabulary for understanding the communicative environment they meet before they engage with the technology. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9229253
- author
- Birkhofer, Casper LU and Mattsson, Isaac LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOK11 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- AI agents, framing analysis, sociology of expectations, expectations-confirmation theory, opinion leaders, LinkedIn, marketing communication, technology hype
- language
- English
- id
- 9229253
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-25 11:05:14
- date last changed
- 2026-06-25 11:05:14
@misc{9229253,
abstract = {{Between 2024 and 2026, AI providers launched dedicated agent products and presented them as tools that can plan, decide and carry out marketing tasks with greater independence than earlier generative AI. On LinkedIn, Swedish marketing executives and industry opinion leaders produce a parallel discourse that reaches the same professional audience. This study examines how the relationship between these two sources shapes the communicative environment in which Swedish marketers form expectations about AI agents. Sweden serves as a useful case because of its high degree of digitalisation, national AI strategy and position within the EU regulatory environment. The study combines two qualitative framing analyses of nine provider documents from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google and fifteen LinkedIn posts from five Swedish opinion leaders. The analysis draws on Sociology of Expectations and Expectations-Confirmation Theory, and the coding framework builds on Vicsek's three dimensions of fictional expectations, extended through inductive sub-codes developed during coding. The findings show that opinion leaders rework provider framings through three patterns: translation into professional categories such as onboarding and tool stacks, selective adoption that filters out the most categorical provider claims and counterframes that introduce measurability, boundaries and hands-on authority. The study contributes refinements to Vicsek's framework, suggests that hype is not only intensified or downplayed as it moves between discourses but selectively replaced and offers marketers a vocabulary for understanding the communicative environment they meet before they engage with the technology.}},
author = {{Birkhofer, Casper and Mattsson, Isaac}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Translating the Hype: A qualitative study of how AI agents are framed for Swedish marketing professionals}},
year = {{2026}},
}