Smartphone and web apps for pest and disease management in viticulture: A mapping of functionality, AI integration, and accessibility

Smartphone and web-based apps represent a growing interface between agronomic knowledge and digital decision support, offering practitioners accessible tools for preventive and evidence-based integrated pest management (IPM). Viticulture provides an especially relevant system for evaluating such tools, given its economic importance in many countries, the complexity of its pest and disease assemblages, and the multiple intervention decisions required across the growing season. As the landscape of publicly and commercially available apps continues to expand, a systematic understanding of what exists, what it offers, and where gaps remain is vital to guide innovation in meaningful directions. This study mapped 49 publicly available smartphone and web-based apps supporting pest and disease management in viticulture, evaluating them across four layers: IPM support, AI and computational intelligence integration, interoperability, and pricing accessibility. Apps were evaluated against a set of nine IPM components, covering the full spectrum from diagnosis and monitoring to intervention support and regulatory reporting. Results reveal a landscape of growing technological sophistication: AI-enabled apps covered a wider range of IPM functions, but AI functionality was disproportionately associated with subscription-based pricing. Advisory decision support, surveillance and regulatory reporting, and conversational AI integration emerged as the least represented components, pointing to priority areas for the next generation of digital IPM tools. These findings provide a basis to inform future development in digital viticulture, offering actionable insights for app developers, extension services, policymakers, and other stakeholders seeking to support multifaceted, accessible, and scientifically validated digital solutions for sustainable management of grapevine pests and diseases.