Artificial intelligence (AI), as a new-generation general purpose technology, is penetrating the economic system with unprecedented breadth and depth, posing fundamental challenges to the established theoretical paradigms of economic development. This article adopts the perspective of technology-institution co-evolution. It first surveys the co-evolutionary framework of evolutionary economics and techno-economic paradigm theory, and then advances a core proposition: that AI embedding in economic development signifies a paradigm shift from “exogenous technological shocks” to “technology-institution bidirectional reshaping”. The study’s findings are roughly as follows: AI’s embedding in the economic system is not a unidirectional diffusion of technology. Instead, it engages in continuous mutual shaping with existing institutional frameworks through three channels – factor reconfiguration, organizational transformation, and governance transition. Divergent institutional endowments naturally lead to divergent national AI trajectories. On this basis, this article constructs a two-dimensional analytical tool of “technological change momentum-institutional adaptation elasticity” to explain why AI embedding pathways differ and where their phase-specific characteristics originate. It concludes by setting out a research agenda for the reconstruction of the theoretical paradigm.
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Share and Cite
Liu, X. (2026) Theoretical Paradigm Reconstruction of Artificial Intelligence Embedding in Economic Development: An Exploration from the Perspective of Technology-institution Co-evolution. Scientific Research Bulletin, 3(3), 46-50. https://doi.org/10.71052/srb2024/SARI4769