Journal of Trade and Industrial Policies

Journal of Trade and Industrial Policies

AI Governance as a Catalyst or Constraint of Creative Destruction in Digital Trade: Toward a Theory of Governed Digital Market Transformation

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran; Researcher at the Institute for Trade Studies and Research
Abstract
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing digital markets by altering how businesses engage with customers, innovate, compete, add value, and engage in global trade. While a lot of research has been done on artificial intelligence as a source of automation, productivity growth, and innovative business models, less focus has been placed on the institutional factors that determine whether AI leads to productive creative destruction or strengthens market concentration and regulatory barriers. In order to explain how artificial intelligence governance can both facilitate and impede the transformation of digital markets, this conceptual paper develops the theory of governed creative destruction. The paper makes the case that the economic effects of artificial intelligence are based on the creative destruction tradition, research on technological innovation and competition, digital trade literature, platform economics, and new research on agentic e-commerce. The study also identifies agentic commerce as a significant new mechanism that could change the structure of digital markets by transferring consumer search, recommendation, comparison, and transaction decisions to autonomous or semi-autonomous agents. According to the resulting framework, effective artificial intelligence governance should maintain the conditions that allow for experimentation, entry, competition, innovation, and market reallocation in addition to lowering technological risks. In addition to developing theoretical ideas for further empirical research, the paper provides a conceptual framework for comprehending the transformation of digital trade as a controlled process of creative destruction.
Keywords


Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 15 September 2026

  • Receive Date 07 September 2026
  • Accept Date 15 September 2026