Smart Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in Sustainable Viticulture: Applications, Benefits, Barriers and Governance for High-Quality Grape Production

Smart technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly reshaping viticulture by improving vineyard monitoring, supporting data interpretation, and enabling more targeted management decisions. This review examines how sensor networks, remote sensing, machine learning, deep learning, and decision-support systems contribute to more sustainable vineyard management and the production of high-quality grapes. Particular attention is paid to applications in grapevine stress monitoring, disease and pest detection, irrigation and nutrient management, yield estimation, grape quality prediction, and emerging automation. The review also highlights the main barriers that still limit broader adoption in commercial vineyards, including data quality issues, limited transferability across sites and seasons, interoperability gaps, vendor lock-in, and concerns related to governance, privacy, and cybersecurity. Although these constraints remain significant, the available evidence shows that smart viticulture can improve resource-use efficiency, support more precise interventions, and help growers respond more effectively to environmental variability. Future progress will depend on stronger validation under field conditions, better integration into practical vineyard workflows, interoperable digital infrastructures, and decision-support tools that are transparent, reliable, and useful for end users.