Conclusions: the present of urban AI and the future of cities

The era of urban artificial intelligences has begun. It is already difficult to imagine urban futures without artificial intelligence (AI). In this final chapter, we draw on the volume’s empirical findings to explore the repercussions of urban AI and give evidence of how the emergence of AI in cities is reshaping urban society, urban infrastructure, urban governance, urban planning and urban sustainability. Subsequently, we demonstrate how the city is influencing the evolution of AI, by moulding its physical manifestations in actually existing spaces and determining its very intelligence. The second half of the chapter is dedicated to unpacking similarities between this collection’s case studies of AI urbanism and well-known practices of smart urbanism. Here, we highlight connections with past and present smart-city initiatives, as well as points of departure that suggest the formation of a novel AI urbanism. We conclude the volume by discussing the implications of the emergence of urban AI for urban theory and the future of cities.