Bridging Technology and Cognition: A Resource-Based Explanation of AI Application’s Influence on Combined Innovation Ambidexterity

Realizing the innovation value of artificial intelligence (AI) application requires understanding how firms support both exploratory and exploitative innovation. Drawing on the resource-based view, the resource orchestration perspective, and the attention-based view, this study examines the relationship between AI application and combined innovation ambidexterity (CIA), the mediating role of digital finance attention (DFA), and the moderating roles of environmental uncertainty (EU) and the degree of market competition (DMC). Using a panel of 14,994 firm-year observations from Chinese A-share-listed firms covering 2015–2024, the results show a positive association between AI application and CIA and provide evidence consistent with partial mediation through DFA. The interaction estimates are consistent with inverted-U-shaped moderating effects of EU and DMC. Subsample analyses indicate a stronger AI application–CIA association among state-owned enterprises and high-tech firms. These findings contribute to AI-enabled innovation research by examining the combined dimension of innovation ambidexterity, identifying an attention-based financial pathway, and distinguishing the nonlinear boundary roles of different market conditions. They also offer implications for integrating AI into innovation activities and designing managerial and policy support that accounts for firms’ financing conditions and external environments.