Current Status and Emerging Trends of Generative Artificial Intelligence Technology: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

With the widespread application of ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer), its superordinate concept, generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), has received increasing attention from researchers. The current study attempted to explore the current status and emerging trends of Gen AI technology research by visualizing the relevant published articles using the Biblioshiny tool. A total of 1,902 academic articles in the Web of Science (WOS) database published between 2014-2022 were analyzed. Annual publications, most productive journals and countries, co-authors, co-occurring keywords, document co-citations, and emerging trends of Gen AI research were analyzed. The following are the main findings of the study: the current status of Gen AI research is reflected in the following aspects: (1) the volume of documents produced is increasing year on year; (2) the publication of practical applications such as ChatGPT has brought a high level of interest to related research exploring the application of Gen AI in various research fields, such as education, medicine, drug discovery, and so on; and (3) two influential co-citation clusters have been formed. The emerging trends of the application of Gen AI research are also summarized as follows: (1) Gen AI has powerful technical advantages; (2) the application of Gen AI has great potential in the field of medicine, education and so on for the future; and (3) the updating and development of relevant technologies will always be the focus of Gen AI research.