How AI rewires inter-firm collaboration: a review and collaboration rewiring model of disruptive digital technologies

Abstract Disruptive digital technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data technologies, have profoundly reshaped businesses, impacting intra-firm processes, operations, and business models. Inter-firm collaboration serves as a fertile ground for disruptive digital technologies, while also fostering their refinement and implementation. Building on fragmented insights from diverse fields, our study conducts a systematic literature review to examine the bidirectional relationship between disruptive digital technologies and inter-firm collaboration. It is based on an analysis of 67 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2025 and lays the foundation for the ‘collaboration rewiring model’. This model synthesizes prior research across three stages of the collaboration process: (1) the initiation phase, in which disruptive digital technologies act as catalysts for collaboration, (2) the collaboration phase, where they transform collaboration processes, governance mechanisms, and relational dynamics, and (3) the outcome phase in which they reshape the outcomes of collaboration. Our collaboration rewiring model puts forward that disruptive digital technologies have distinct, phase-specific and interrelated influences on inter-firm collaboration. Taken together, the collaboration rewiring model offers a structured account of how disruptive digital technologies influence inter-firm collaboration and points to promising avenues for future research.