This research aims to provide an overview of the scientific production on the application of AI in public transport, its thematic evolution, and emerging research niches and trends, to serve as a reference for future work by researchers and practitioners. To this end, a bibliometric analysis of all scientific production in the two major international databases, Web of Science and Scopus, was carried out. The present analysis comprises the most extensive study on the application of AI in public transport. The results show that AI applications are more prevalent in private vehicles than in public transport. Hence, future work has major challenges to address in order to delve into thematic niches within each transportation system.