Artificial Intelligence Applications in International Trade: A Bibliometric Analysis

Artificial intelligence is having an increasingly significant impact on the functioning of international trade, productivity dynamics, and policy processes today. This study examined the role of artificial intelligence applications in international trade and identified research trends in the field using a bibliometric approach. The study analyzed 146 articles published between 1981 and 2025, using the keywords ‘international trade’ and ‘artificial intelligence applications’ in the Web of Science database on 4 September 2025. Subject areas and document types were considered during the search process; publication trends, collaborations between countries and institutions, the most-cited studies, and keyword networks were evaluated using VOSviewer. The findings show that academic output in the fields of artificial intelligence and international trade has increased rapidly, particularly since 2018, with 2024 exhibiting the highest publication volume. It was found that most studies were concentrated in the field of Business Economics. The analysis results clearly reveal that the United States, the United Kingdom, and China are leaders in both publication and citation counts. The original contribution of this study is that, unlike bibliometric studies commonly found in the literature that approach the relationship between ‘artificial intelligence and international trade’ from a general perspective, it addresses the subject from an international trade perspective, focusing on artificial intelligence applications. In this respect, the study provides a more targeted contribution to the field by revealing both the direction of development in the literature and the application areas in which artificial intelligence is concentrated in trade processes.