The impact of artificial intelligence application on enterprise environmental performance: Evidence from microenterprises.

[Display omitted] • We examine how the introduction of AI affects enterprise environmental performance. • The application of AI can reduce the pollution emission level of enterprises. • Improving labor substitution can improve enterprise environmental performance. • Improving technological innovation can improve firm environmental performance. • The use of AI has a different impact on different enterprises. The progress of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is an important way to solve the problem of global sustainable development. This paper discusses how AI, as a new scientific force, affects the pollution reduction of enterprises from a micro perspective. In this paper, the robot data provided by the International Federation of Robotics and pollution data of industrial enterprises in China are used for empirical analysis to test the effect of AI on pollution performance of enterprises. The results show that the application of AI can reduce enterprise emissions through technological innovation effect and labor substitution effect, and this result remains robust after sample substitution and variable substitution. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that AI has a more significant impact on enterprises in big cities and southern cities, as well as large enterprises, old enterprises and non-technology-intensive enterprises. The research results of this paper provide an effective reference for solving how to achieve green and sustainable development of artificial intelligence applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]