Intelligent Brains, Green Gains: How Artificial Intelligence Adoption Shapes Green Economic Efficiency?

This study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) adoption affects urban green economic efficiency (GEE) through a new institutional lens. Using a staggered difference-in-differences framework on 284 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2013 to 2023, we treat China's national new generation AI innovative development pilot zones policy as a quasi-natural experiment. Our results reveal that AI adoption significantly increases GEE by 6.6%. This improvement is driven by optimized resource allocation, green technology innovation, and industrial structure upgrading. Also, the benefits are most pronounced in cities with strong talent introduction, high marketization, and lower public environmental concern. These insights advance the institutional discourse on AI-mediated economic sustainability.