As AI shopping agents have become more common, consumers may interpret response delay not as a system limitation, but as a temporal cue that the AI is engaging in a more careful recommendation process. Furthermore, consumers increasingly evaluate conversational AI agents according to standards typically applied to human agents. As a result, their evaluations may depend not only on recommendation quality but also on consumers’ personal characteristics and the subjective value they attach to the interaction. This study investigates whether the effect of response delay depends on consumers’ narcissism and identifies the underlying mechanism. The results show that AI response delay positively affects acceptance intention, and that its indirect effect through subjective understanding is stronger among consumers with higher narcissism. These findings suggest that response delay can compensate for the limited visibility of AI recommendation processes and offer practical guidance for platform firms in designing temporal gaps in AI interactions.