REVIEWING THE ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MOBILE APP CREATION | Phương | TNU Journal of Science and Technology

REVIEWING THE ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MOBILE APP CREATION

About this article

Received: 31/05/25                Revised: 30/06/25                Published: 30/06/25

Authors

1. Doan Ngoc Phuong Email to author, TNU - University of Information and Communication Technology
2. Nguyen Thu Phuong, TNU - University of Information and Communication Technology
3. Nguyen Thi Dung, TNU - University of Information and Communication Technology

Abstract


Recent breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence have turned this technology into the primary engine of mobile app development. Through a combined bibliometric analysis and a PRISMA 2020 review of 56 studies (from January 2020 to May 2025), we surveyed publication years, publisher distribution and keyword co-occurrence networks to redraw the field’s development. From there, we identified ten critical gaps, among which the most notable are the lack of artificial intelligence driven user interface testing frameworks and the scarcity of high quality multisensory UI/UX datasets that record visual, tactile and gaze data simultaneously. To address these challenges, two research trends have emerged: prompt engineering, which fine tunes input instructions for large language models, and few shot learning, which enables models to generalize from very few examples. Building on these findings, we propose six future research directions: (1) develop diverse multisensory UI/UX datasets; (2) integrate end to end artificial intelligence testing pipelines; (3) optimize prompts for interface generation; (4) design modular cross platform code architectures; (5) embed explainable artificial intelligence mechanisms in generated interfaces; and (6) deploy large scale quality assurance as a service via automated cloud-based pipelines. These steps lay out a clear roadmap for both academia and practice to advance artificial intelligence driven mobile app creation.

Keywords


AI-powered mobile-app creation; Bibliometric analysis; Systematic review; Generative AI; PRISMA

Full Text:

PDF

References


[1] D. Chen, X. Zhang, J. Lee, et al., “LLM for mobile: An initial roadmap,” ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol., vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 1–29, May 2025, doi: 10.1145/3708528.

[2] J. Wei, A.-L. Courbis, T. Lambolais, G. Dray, and W. Maalej, “On AI-inspired UI design,” IEEE Softw., vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 50–58, 2025, doi: 10.1109/MS.2025.3536838.

[3] D. Dao, J. Y. C. Teo, W. Wang, and H. D. Nguyen, “LLM-Powered Multimodal AI Conversations for Diabetes Prevention,” in Proc. 1st ACM Workshop AI-Powered Q&A Syst. Multimedia (AIQAM ’24), Phuket, Thailand, 10 Jun. 2024, pp. 1–6, doi: 10.1145/3643479.3662049.

[4] M. Hasan, K. S. Mehrab, W. U. Ahmad, and R. Shahriyar, “Text2App: A framework for creating Android apps from text descriptions,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.08301 [cs.SE], Apr. 16, 2021.

[5] S. Böhm and S. Graser, “AI-based mobile app prototyping: Status quo, perspectives, and preliminary insights from experimental case studies,” in Proc. 16th Int. Conf. Advances in Human-oriented and Personalized Mechanisms, Technologies, and Services (CENTRIC 2023), Valencia, Spain, Nov. 13–17, 2023, pp. 29–37.

[6] L. Alwakeel, K. Lano, and H. Alfraihi, “Towards integrating machine learning models into mobile apps using AppCraft,” in Proc. Agile Model-driven Engineering Workshop (Agile MDE) at the Software Technologies: Applications and Foundations (STAF) Federated Conferences, Leicester, U.K., Jul. 20, 2023, CEUR Workshop Proc., vol. 3620, pp. 7–10.

[7] Y. Li, X. Dang, H. Tian, et al., “An empirical study of AI techniques in mobile applications,” J. Syst. Softw., vol. 219, Art. no. 112233, Jan. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.jss.2024.112233.

[8] A. Namoun, A. Alrehaili, Z. U. Nisa, H. Almoamari, and A. Tufail, “Predicting the usability of mobile applications using AI tools: The rise of large user-interface models, opportunities, and challenges,” Procedia Comput. Sci., vol. 238, pp. 671–682, 2024, doi:10.1016/j.procs.2024.06.076.

[9] M. H. Miraz, M. Ali, and P. S. Excell, “Cross-cultural usability evaluation of AI-based adaptive user interface for mobile applications,” Acta Sci. Technol., vol. 44, no. 1, Art. no. e61112, Jul. 2022, doi: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v44i1.61112.

[10] J. Wei, A.-L. Courbis, T. Lambolais, B. Xu, P.-L. Bernard, and G. Dray, “Boosting GUI prototyping with diffusion models,” in Proc. 2023 IEEE 31st Int. Requirements Engineering Conf. (RE), Hannover, Germany, Sept. 4–8, 2023, pp. 275–280, doi: 10.1109/RE57278.2023.00035.

[11] J. Senanayake, H. Kalutarage, M. O. Al-Kadri, A. Petrovski, and L. Piras, “Android code vulnerabilities early detection using AI-powered ACVED plugin,” in Proc. 37th Annu. IFIP WG 11.3 Conf. Data and Applications Security and Privacy (DBSec 2023), Sophia Antipolis, France, Jul. 19–21, 2023, pp. 339–357, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-37586-6_20.

[12] L. Alwakeel, K. Lano, and H. Alfraihi, “AppCraft: Model-driven development framework for mobile applications,” IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 23658–23699, Feb. 2025, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3536321.

[13] Y. Gui, Y. Wan, Z. Li, Z. Zhang, D. Chen, H. Zhang, et al., “UICoPilot: Automating UI synthesis via hierarchical code generation from webpage designs,” in Proc. ACM Web Conf. 2025 (WWW ’25), Sydney, NSW, Australia, 28 Apr.–2 May 2025, pp. 1–10, doi: 10.1145/3696410.3714891.

[14] I. H. Sarker, M. M. Hoque, M. K. Uddin, and T. Alsanoosy, “Mobile data science and intelligent apps: Concepts, AI-based modeling and research directions,” Mobile Netw. Appl., vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 285–303, Jan. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s11036-020-01650-z.

[15] M. J. Page, J. E. McKenzie, P. M. Bossuyt, I. Boutron, T. C. Hoffmann, C. D. Mulrow, et al., “The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews,” BMJ, vol. 372, Art. no. n71, Mar. 2021, doi: 10.1136/bmj.n71.

[16] M. Xing, R. Zhang, H. Xue, Q. Chen, F. Yang, and Z. Xiao, “Understanding the weakness of large language model agents within a complex Android environment,” in Proc. 30th ACM SIGKDD Conf. Knowl. Discov. Data Min. (KDD ’24), Barcelona, Spain, Aug. 25–29, 2024, pp. 6061–6072, doi: 10.1145/3637528.3671650.

[17] J. Senanayake, H. Kalutarage, L. Piras, M. O. Al-Kadri, and A. Petrovski, “Assuring privacy of AI-powered community-driven Android code vulnerability detection,” in Proc. ESORICS Int. Workshops 2024, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 15264, Springer, Bydgoszcz, Poland, Sept. 16–20, 2024, pp. 457–476, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-82362-6_27.

[18] S. Petridis, M. X. Liu, A. J. Fiannaca, V. Tsai, M. Terry, and C. J. Cai, “In situ AI prototyping: Infusing multimodal prompts into mobile settings with MobileMaker,” in Proc. 2024 IEEE Symp. Visual Languages and Human-Centric Comput. (VL/HCC), Liverpool, U.K., Sept. 2–6, 2024, pp. 121–133, doi: 10.1109/VL/HCC60511.2024.00023.

[19] F. Huang, G. Li, X. Zhou, J. F. Canny, and Y. Li, “Creating user interface mock-ups from high-level text descriptions with deep-learning models,” arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.07775 [cs.HC], Oct. 14, 2021.

[20] S. Feng, S. Ma, H. Wang, D. Kong, and C. Chen, “MUD: Towards a large-scale and noise-filtered UI dataset for modern style UI modeling,” in Proc. 2024 CHI Conf. Human Factors Comput. Syst. (CHI ’24), Honolulu, HI, USA, May 11–16, 2024, doi: 10.1145/3613904.3642350.

[21] S. N. Ardini, S. Sunarya, and K. Latifah, “Development of mobile application through the concept of artificial intelligence to enhance pronunciation skill in EFL,” KnE Social Sciences, vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 56–66, Mar. 2024, doi: 10.18502/kss.v9i6.15254 .

[22] K. Kolthoff, J. Gerling, F. Trautsch, et al., “Interlinking user stories and GUI prototyping: A semi-automatic LLM-based approach,” in Proc. 32nd IEEE Int. Requirements Engineering Conf. (RE 2024), IEEE, 2024, pp. 1–11, doi: 10.1109/RE.2024.1234567.

[23] Y. Jiang, S. Zhao, N. Werden, and W. Oney, “Computational approaches for understanding, generating, and adapting user interfaces,” in Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’22), ACM, 2022, pp. 1–8, doi: 10.1145/3491101.3519735.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.34238/tnu-jst.12946

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
TNU Journal of Science and Technology
Rooms 408, 409 - Administration Building - Thai Nguyen University
Tan Thinh Ward - Thai Nguyen City
Phone: (+84) 208 3840 288 - E-mail: jst@tnu.edu.vn
Based on Open Journal Systems
©2018 All Rights Reserved