AI-enabled quality as a driver of user satisfaction and digital content engagement in Malaysian ubiquitous libraries: An ISSM approach

While AI is gradually becoming an integral component of library platforms, it is still not clear how AI-driven information and service quality impact user satisfaction and engagement with digital content. This study uses Malaysia’s u-Pustaka as a national testbed to examine the impact of AI-enabled information quality and AI-enabled service quality on user satisfaction, leading to engagement with digital collections. Following the Information Systems Success Model (ISSM), quantitative data was collected from 296 active users through a survey and then analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings indicate that quality of AI-enabled information is the most powerful predictor of user satisfaction (H1: β = 0.645, t = 10.109, p < 0.001) and has a smaller but significant direct impact on engagement with digital content (H2: β = 0.200, t = 1.988, p = 0.047). AI-enabled service quality exerts a moderate positive influence on satisfaction (H3: β = 0.248, t = 3.803, p < 0.001) but does not directly increase engagement (H4: β = 0.123, t = 1.592, p = 0.111). Rather, user satisfaction is a strong predictor of digital content engagement: H5: β = 0.537, t = 5.203, p < 0.001. Collectively, these findings suggest that users derive value from AI in terms of its contribution to the enhanced relevance, accuracy, and usefulness of information, not in terms of service automation. The implications for Malaysian policymakers and library managers are that there should be a strong emphasis on “content intelligence” through AI, such as enhanced relevance ranking, multilingual support, metadata enhancement, and personalization, accompanied by targeted initiatives in AI literacy. The implications for theory and methodology are that this research extends ISSM to the context of ubiquitous libraries that utilize AI, tests the quality constructs of AI, and offers a robust model for digital library contexts, establishing u-Pustaka as a benchmark for the global south in the context of AI-enabled knowledge infrastructures.