Artificial Intelligence Embedding and Enterprise Competitiveness in the Embodied Intelligence Industry: The Mediating Role of Competitive Structure Reconfiguration

Artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into physical products, industrial scenarios, and innovation ecosystems, yet management research has focused mainly on AI adoption rather than the depth of organizational integration. This study examines how AI embedding affects enterprise competitiveness in China’s embodied intelligence industry and whether competitive structure reconfiguration mediates this relationship. Using survey data from 266 firms and partial least squares structural equation modeling, the analysis shows that AI embedding positively affects both enterprise competitiveness and competitive structure reconfiguration. Competitive structure reconfiguration also improves enterprise competitiveness and partially mediates the focal relationship, with a variance accounted for value of 43.7%. By contrast, the moderating effects of data–computing foundation and scenario openness are not supported. These findings indicate that the competitive value of AI depends not only on adoption but also on its integration into R&D, decision-making, organizational coordination, and scenario development, as well as on the structural changes that follow. The study contributes by distinguishing AI embedding from AI adoption and by identifying competitive structure reconfiguration as a process mechanism linking embedded AI to technological, ecosystem, and rule-based competitiveness.