AI-Enhanced Literature Reviews: Connecting Emerging Phenomena and Bodies of Knowledge

Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs) are structured knowledge collections that describe key concepts, terminology, and practices. Emerging research phenomena are rapidly evolving and novel domains that are attracting growing interest from researchers. The relationship between existing bodies of knowledge and emerging phenomena is complex, and offers exciting research opportunities. To address this challenge, we introduce a literature review framework called Contextualize, Visualize, and Interpret (CVI-AI), which leverages artificial intelligence and visualization capabilities to help researchers understand the relationship between emerging phenomena and existing BoKs. Our contributions are threefold. First, we illustrate how incorporating AI tools into the CVI-AI framework improves the literature review process and outcomes by examining the connections and semantics within the literature while formulating novel research questions. Second, our framework provides guidance for applying AI tools to research. Third, our study supports researchers in developing new research agendas by linking emerging phenomena to the existing BoKs.