Amid escalating global economic uncertainty, a comprehensive analysis of the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) development on urban economic resilience (UER) is crucial for promoting sustainable global economic development. This study utilizes panel data from 284 Chinese cities from 2010 to 2022 to empirically test the influence of urban AI on UER and its role mechanism by using the fixed-effects, mediating-effects, and moderating-effects models. The study reveals that AI significantly enhances UER, with an improvement of 7.44%. Harnessing AI for UER remains valid even after conducting the robustness and endogeneity tests. Mechanism analysis discovered that AI enhances UER by increasing urban innovation ability. Industrial structure and wage structure positively moderate the effect of AI on UER. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that the improvement effect of AI level on UER is more evident in large (7.49% increase), southern (5.11% increase), non-resource-based (10.84% increase), and high-economic cities (11.17% increase). This paper discusses the path selection from an AI perspective to enhance UER, which provides a useful reference for cities seeking to navigate the new wave of technological revolution.