The development of artificial intelligence has gone through three waves, and the next decade is crucial for its success or failure. In the first two waves, linguistics played a significant role, even driving the development of artificial intelligence. However, in the current wave, the importance of linguistics has significantly declined. This article examines the relationship between linguistics and artificial intelligence, attempting to address the reasons why linguistics has not actively participated in the third wave. The article argues that linguistics is undergoing a theoretical revolution towards brain-like direction, laying the foundation for the next round of integration between linguistics and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is approaching the bottleneck of computing power and facing new challenges. With a century of accumulation, linguistics can effectively promote the transition of artificial intelligence from “big data + small rules” to “small data + big rules”.