Jingpeng Chen, Kefan Hong, Ranqi Han, Zigong Cai
In the current era of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), enhancing organizational resilience represents a critical global economic priority. Artificial intelligence (AI), a crucial factor in fostering resilience, has often been neglected in previous studies. Utilizing dynamic capability theory and analyzing China’s listed enterprises from 2010 to 2023, we ascertain that the adoption of AI enhances organizational resilience. These findings withstand robustness tests. Elevated industry competition, environmental uncertainty, and efficient resource allocation amplify AI’s positive effect on resilience; conversely, managerial short-termism attenuates this relationship. Furthermore, we treat the 2018 U.S. tariff list imposed on China as an exogenous shock to U.S.-China trade friction. Enterprises located in AI innovation pilot zones were designated as the treatment group, whereas others constituted the control group. A DID model was constructed to examine how trade friction affects corporate resilience. The results passed parallel trend tests. Our findings demonstrate that firms with superior AI application proficiency possess enhanced crisis response capabilities. This evidence substantiates AI’s pivotal role in resilience and provides new implications for leveraging technological transformation to navigate challenges.