Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science, involved in the research, design, and application of intelligent computer. Traditional methods for modeling and optimizing complex structure systems require huge amounts of computing resources, and artificial‐intelligence‐based solutions can often provide valuable alternatives for efficiently solving problems in the civil engineering. This paper summarizes recently developed methods and theories in the developing direction for applications of artificial intelligence in civil engineering, including evolutionary computation, neural networks, fuzzy systems, expert system, reasoning, classification, and learning, as well as others like chaos theory, cuckoo search, firefly algorithm, knowledge‐based engineering, and simulated annealing. The main research trends are also pointed out in the end. The paper provides an overview of the advances of artificial intelligence applied in civil engineering.