The era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has arrived and is changing the life and work of human beings at an unprecedented pace. The Chinese government attaches great importance to the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH), considering it an integral part of maintaining the diversity of culture and promoting social harmony. Empowered by AI technology, the protection and inheritance of ICH enables the visual presentation of cultural information using digital technologies in the intelligent era, as well as digital restoration and creative design for inheritance. Relying on digital protection for the digital dissemination, this approach greatly enhances working efficiency, better achieves the information reproduction and creative presentation of ICH culture, strengthens the protection effect of ICH culture, and more efficiently achieves the goal of inheritance. Grounded in the new AI-driven era, this study investigates methods for leveraging AI to empower the visualization design and inheritance of ICH information, including the paths of empowerment, the principles and contents of visualization design, in the hope of summarizing effective strategies for better achieving the innovative protection and inheritance of ICH information in the AI era.