Examining the impact of green technological specialization and the integration of AI technologies on green innovation performance: evidence from China

China's commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 has sparked scholars' interest in examining the environmental ramifications of green technologies in the digital era. While plenty of them provide eco-efficiency policy such as increasing R&D investment or stimulating green exports, little attention has been paid to the firm-level technological management and recombination strategies such as differentiation/specialization of green portfolios along with AI integration, which can significantly impact the pace of net-zero transitions. To address these gaps, this study investigates the moderating effect of technological specialization on levels of AI integration into green technologies estimated by green-AI technological distance and enterprises' innovation performance in Chinese contemporary contexts. Regression results of fixed-effect model in Chinese patent data (2011–2020) indicate that enterprises' green innovation performance is significantly improved as AI integrates more into the green technologies due to the legitimacy and the inability to appropriate more green values. Interestingly, specialized green-technological enterprises demonstrate superior performance in integrating distant AI technologies. This occurrence could potentially be driven by the governments' incentives and the organization's risk attitudes, shaping green innovation outcomes. Hence, the study underscores the importance of considering both the AI integration and green specialization in shaping innovation outcomes amidst green transitions.