A Scoping Review of Artificial Intelligence Research Trends in Mobile Applications

Abstract

Over the past decade, mobile devices have become an integral part of our daily routines, offering a broad spectrum of applications that enhance everyday tasks. As more people adopt smartphones, developers are increasingly focusing on improving app quality, particularly by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) features. This growing trend has led to a surge of interest from both researchers and industry experts, who are aiming to explore AI integration in sectors such as healthcare, education, agriculture, and e-commerce. This study conducts a thorough review of AI applications on mobile platforms by analysing 98 scholarly articles published between 2014 and 2024 from databases including Scopus, IEEE Explore, and Science Direct. After screening for relevance, 50 articles were selected for in-depth evaluation. The findings show a significant emphasis on healthcare, which accounted for 38% of the reviewed studies, followed by agriculture at 30% and education at 18%. This advancement is in line with societal demands because AI-powered mobile apps improve vital industries like healthcare, agriculture, education, and corporate operations by offering predictive analytics. Notably, machine learning (ML) techniques were prominent, used in 66% of the articles, while deep learning (DL) appeared in 16%. The review also highlights convolutional neural networks (CNN) as a key algorithm, present in 56% of the studies. These insights demonstrate the profound influence of AI on mobile app development and point to emerging trends and future research opportunities in this field. The need for cross-platform AI development has increased dramatically as AI continues to transform mobile technology. This strategy is essential to the scalability, accessibility, and effectiveness of the larger mobile app ecosystem since AI-enabled apps are designed to function flawlessly across a variety of mobile operating systems (iOS, Android, etc.).