Abstract: How artificial intelligence drives high-quality development of enterprises has become an important topic in the digital economy era. The existing studies have paid insufficient attention to the differences in the effects of different types of artificial intelligence and their transmission mechanisms. From the perspective of technological heterogeneity and techno-economic characteristics, artificial intelligence can be classified into saving technologies, characterized by substituting for and collaborating with production labor, and enhancing technologies, characterized by empowering R&D labor. An empirical research based on the data of Chinese A-share listed firms from 2010 to 2023, together with two artificial intelligence indicators constructed through patent text analysis, shows that both types of artificial intelligence technologies can significantly improve firms’ operating revenue and total factor productivity. The mechanism analysis shows that saving technologies mainly promote the improvement of firms’ labor skill levels and resource allocation efficiency by substituting for low-skilled production labor and collaborating with high-skilled production labor, whereas enhancing technologies mainly strengthen firms’ R&D innovation capability by empowering R&D activities and improving knowledge creation efficiency. Further analysis shows that different types of artificial intelligence technologies differ significantly in their internal application links, transmission mechanisms, and economic consequences within firms. These findings suggest that governance should be implemented according to the functional attributes of artificial intelligence, and that the potential of artificial intelligence in promoting high-quality enterprise development can be better released by optimizing talent structure and the allocation of technology application scenarios.

Key words: artificial intelligence, high-quality development of enterprises, conservation-oriented technology, enhanced technology