Since the emergence of digital technology in 1970s, theater lighting design experienced technological evolution from traditional manual operation control to digital automatic control. The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 21st century facilitated the development of new lighting design styles. Early theater lighting design relied on colorists manually adjusting and controlling lighting on site as well as designers’ acuity to stage environment and cooperation with technical teams to complete the performance effect. This study aims to analyze the technological evolution of digital and AI technologies in theater lighting design and the historical context of application, discuss the difficulties and challenges of applying AI to theater lighting design, as well as propose methods for applying AI to theater lighting design. With document analysis, traditional manual operation and control, the historical effects, difficulties, and challenges of digital technology and AI on the technological evolution of theater lighting design, as well as the application method are systematically discussed in this study. Focusing on the comparisons of lighting design characteristics and the analysis of changes from 1970s up to the present time, such characteristics crosses theater performance in different eras, provides rich examples of visual changes under the discussion of technological evolution, and covers diverse scene elements particularly suitable for analyzing various techniques and lighting design. Since 1970s, lighting control was changed from manual dimming to automatic digital control systems, making lighting design more flexible and creating more changeable and accurate lighting effects. After getting into the 21st century, AI technology started to influence theater lighting design. With the assistance of AI technology, designers could quickly simulate various lighting effects and automatically generate or adjust lighting layout to match distinct scene needs. It not only largely shortened design process, but also allowed lighting effects real-time responding scene changes, such as character movement or situation change. Lighting designers no longer simply use technical tools, but co-create with AI technology to make the design process more flexible and innovative. Lighting designers, when applying AI technology, encounter technical complexity and learning difficulty, balance of creation and AI automation, as well as difficulty and challenge in stage immediacy and human-robot collaboration. Applying AI technology to theater lighting design mainly covers lighting design simulation and real-time response adjustment. Through the study, it is expected to re-define the role and value of theater lighting design in the digital and AI era as well as to apply to the development of theater design theory and technology integration in the future.