Grounded in strategic orientation theory, this study conceptualizes artificial intelligence (AI) orientation as a firm’s strategic cognition and organizational action logic centered on AI and examines its impact on innovation performance as well as the moderating effects of multidimensional environmental complexity. To empirically test the proposed relationships, this study develops a corporate AI orientation dictionary consisting of 127 keywords and analyzes data from Chinese A-share listed firms from 2016 to 2023 using negative binomial regression models. The results show that AI orientation significantly enhances innovation performance, managerial complexity strengthens this relationship, whereas technological complexity, market complexity, and competitive complexity weaken it.