Role of artificial intelligence in strategic management of startups: A systematic review

This systematic review examines the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the strategic management of startups, synthesizing empirical and conceptual evidence to identify how AI reshapes decision-making, innovation, competitive strategy, and operational agility in new venture contexts. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, a structured database search was conducted across Scopus and Web of Science using keywords including "artificial intelligence," "strategic management," "startups," "AI decision making," and "entrepreneurship + AI." From an initial pool of 340 records, 25 peer-reviewed studies published between 2014 and 2026 were selected for final inclusion. Rayyan was used for screening and Mendeley for reference management. Thematic analysis was conducted using an NVivo-inspired coding approach, and bibliometric patterns were examined using VOSviewer. Five core themes emerged: (1) AI-augmented strategic decision-making, (2) AI-driven product and process innovation, (3) strategic agility and adaptive capacity, (4) risk identification and mitigation, and (5) ethical, regulatory, and leadership challenges in AI deployment. Findings consistently indicate that AI adoption confers asymmetric advantages to AI-native startups but simultaneously intensifies resource constraints and ethical dilemmas for early-stage ventures. This review contributes a thematically structured, theoretically grounded synthesis of AI's strategic role in startups, offering a novel conceptual framework and actionable implications for founders, investors, and policymakers