According to Warp co-founder Steve Beckett, the album was primarily intended for sedentary listening rather than dancing, and this was reflected in the album art, which depicts an android asleep in an armchair with Kraftwerk and Pink Floyd albums Autobahn (1974) and The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), respectively, at its side:
You could sit down and listen to it like you would a Kraftwerk or Pink Floyd album. That's why we put those sleeves on the cover of Artificial Intelligence – to get it into people's minds that you weren't supposed to dance to it![2]
— Steve Beckett
The third album on the floor is Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove, a 1991 collection of some of the first tracks released on Warp.
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic John Bush praised Artificial Intelligence as "a superb collection of electronic listening music."[3] In 2014, Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy of Vice described it as "an exercise in re-training the ear."[8] The following year, Tegan O'Neil of The A.V. Club wrote: "Although every producer on it would go on to have a long and storied career, the album's music is satisfying enough on its own terms."[9]
In 2014, Rolling Stone included Artificial Intelligence on its list of "The 40 Most Groundbreaking Albums of All Time", citing its formative role in the development of intelligent dance music (IDM).[10] According to The Guardian's Ben Cardew, the album "birthed" the IDM genre and "changed the idea of electronic music as merely a tool for dancing".[11] In 2017, Pitchfork placed it at number ten on its list of "The 50 Best IDM Albums of All Time".[12] In 2023, British GQ placed it at number three on its list of the ten best electronic albums of all time.[13]
