Objective  To examine status and hotspots of artificial intelligence (AI) application in researches on disease prediction at home and abroad with visual analysis for providing references to researches on AI application in disease prediction in China.

  Methods  Bibliometrics method was used to retrieve domestic and foreign literatures of researches on AI application in disease prediction published from 2010 through 2019 via searching Web of Science database. Visual analysis was performed using Cite Space software to describe country/institution cooperation, knowledge base, research hotspots and frontiers of disease prediction researches involving AI application.

  Results  Totally 4 323 literatures were retrieved. The top three countries in terms of number of published literatures are the United States (1 484), China (1 032) and the United Kingdom (300); the top three countries in terms of national cooperation capability are France, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with the centrality values of 0.18, 0.16, and 0.16, respectively; China ranks the eighth in terms of national cooperation capability, with a centrality value of 0.08. Among the retrieved AI application studies, the most studied disease was cancer; the most adopted methods were machine learning and artificial neural network; and the most concerned research topics were disease diagnosis and prognosis.

  Conclusion  Scholars in China have performed a great deal of studies on artificial intelligence application in researches on disease prediction but the quality and influence of the studies need to be improved.