Mechanisms and Pathways of Artificial Intelligence–Driven Rural Industrial Integration

The penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) into rural industries is reshaping the underlying logic of integration among the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in rural areas. Based on a systematic review of the relevant literature, this paper develops a four-dimensional analytical framework—technological penetration, actor empowerment, network restructuring and value co-creation—to explain the micro-level mechanisms through which AI drives rural industrial integration. The analysis shows that AI reduces information asymmetry by embedding data as a production factor, alters the resource endowments and bargaining power of diverse business actors through tool-based empowerment and knowledge diffusion, reshapes the distribution of benefits by restructuring collaborative networks, and ultimately manifests itself in industrial chain extension, value chain upgrading and the sharing of value-added gains. Accordingly, drawing on resource endowments, industrial foundations and locational conditions, villages are classified into three types—peri-urban technology-integrated villages, specialty agriculture–empowered villages and eco-cultural tourism innovation villages—for which differentiated integration pathways are identified. A three-tier dynamic evaluation indicator system covering foundational support, integrative application, and impacts and benefits is then constructed. The paper argues that the extent to which smallholder farmers share in the gains should serve as the core criterion for assessing integration outcomes, and that progress should be advanced in a coordinated manner through precision-oriented technology supply, cultivation of actors' digital literacy, innovation in benefit-linkage mechanisms and optimization of institutional safeguards.