Communication has become the crucial key to a success of public policy both in China and Western countries. After more than thirty years of development, China and Western countries have made fruitful achievements. We made a comparative review of policy communication studies in three aspects: general situations, topics and theoretical prospects. Firstly, the trend of policy communication research from both sides are positive, and it focuses on the new topics brought by the development of artificial intelligence. Secondly, by applying artificial intelligence technology to the research, it is concluded that scholars focus on three topics: communication mechanism, crisis communication and monetary policy communication. Thirdly, policy communication studies have provided us with rich practical materials and useful theoretical exploration, but there is still a lack of attention to Chinese advanced policy communication practices and a profound understanding of the challenges in the context of artificial intelligence which is the direction worthy of scholars striving in in the future.