Deepening education reform and innovation, and cultivating students' innovative abilities are considered essential development directions of AR technology. However, whether AR technology can effectively improve students' innovation abilities remains a topic of debate, as different studies have reported significant discrepancies in their findings. Therefore, this study utilises a meta-analysis method to conduct a quantitative analysis of 36 studies (quasi-experimental or experimental) with respect to 'the impact of AR technology on students' innovative ability' in the past 10 years. The results illustrate that: (1) AR technology exerts a moderate promotion effect on students innovative ability (the overall effect size is 0.702), and there is no significant difference in innovative thinking, innovative practice, innovative personality, etc; (2) in contrast to other educational stages, AR technology has a more positive impact on the innovative ability of children in pre-school; (3) compared with other instructional forms, integrating AR technology with practical instructional methods has a stronger promoting effect on students' innovative ability; (4) AR technology applied to group learning can improve students' innovation ability more effectively than applied to independent learning; (5) the application of AR technology in declarative knowledge teaching is more conducive to cultivating students' innovative ability than in procedural knowledge teaching; and (6) the impact degree of immediate testing and delayed testing on students' innovative ability reach a medium level, with no significant difference observed between the two testing conditions. These analyses provide important references for the future design and optimisation of innovation capability training with the aid of AR technology.