Customer Intention to Adopt AI-Enabled Islamic Digital Banking Services in Somalia: The Roles of Trust, Perceived Shariah Compliance, Perceived Usefulness, and Satisfaction

Abstract

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into Islamic banking offers transformative potential for financial inclusion in Muslim-majority markets, yet customer adoption of AIenabled Islamic digital banking remains understudied, particularly in Africa. Grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, this study examines trust, perceived Shariah compliance, perceived usefulness, and satisfaction as predictors of adoption intention among 200 respondents familiar with Islamic banking, mobile money, or digital financial services in Mogadishu, Somalia. Data were analyzed using PLS-SEM with 5,000-subsample bootstrapping. The structural model explained 66.4% of the variance in behavioral intention. Satisfaction (β = 0.598, p < .001) and trust (β = 0.213, p = .001) were significant positive predictors, whereas perceived Shariah compliance (β = 0.100, p = .166) and perceived usefulness (β = 0.006, p = .925) were not statistically significant once trust and satisfaction were included. However, the tests of perceived Shariah compliance and perceived usefulness should be interpreted as inconclusive because both constructs showed weak reliability and insufficient discriminant validity. This suggests that Somali respondents may not clearly distinguish functional usefulness from Islamic legitimacy when evaluating AIenabled Islamic digital banking. The study provides early empirical evidence from Somalia, an underrepresented African Muslim-majority context in Islamic fintech adoption research, and highlights the importance of trust, satisfaction, and future refinement of Shariah-compliance and usefulness measures.