Patterns in the Growth and Thematic Evolution of Artificial Intelligence Research: A Study Using Bradford Distribution of Productivity and Path Analysis

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology with applications across multiple domains. The corpus of work related to the field of AI has grown significantly in volume as well as in terms of the application of AI in wider domains. However, given the wide application of AI in diverse areas, the measurement and characterization of the span of AI research is often a challenging task. Bibliometrics is a well-established method in the scientific community to measure the patterns and impact of research. It however has also received significant criticism for its overemphasis on the macroscopic picture and the inability to provide a deep understanding of growth and thematic structure of knowledge-creation activities. Therefore, this study presents a framework comprising of two techniques, namely, Bradford’s distribution and path analysis to characterize the growth and thematic evolution of the discipline. While the Bradford distribution provides a macroscopic view of artificial intelligence research in terms of patterns of growth, the path analysis method presents a microscopic analysis of the thematic evolutionary trajectories, thereby completing the analytical framework. Detailed insights into the evolution of each subdomain are drawn, major techniques employed in various AI applications are identified, and some relevant implications are discussed to demonstrate the usefulness of the analyses.