In the past few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has attracted the attention of both academia and industry with strong momentum and has been widely utilized in various fields. Computer networks provide critical computing infrastructure for the realization of AI. However, it is inefficient to provide AI with computing power in a fast and accurate manner, because of the inherently distributed structure of traditional networks, and it results in the difficulty in practical application and deployment. Software defined networking (SDN) proposes the concept of centralized control, which adapts computing capability for AI on demand and thereby can achieve comprehensive deployment. Combining AI and SDN to realize intelligent software defined networking can not only solve problems of traditional network but also promote network application innovation. Therefore, this paper introduces the problems which exist in the scenario where combining AI and SDN, explains the necessity of SDN based on AI, and analyzes the advantages of combining SDN with AI. Secondly, from the bottom up, the different combination cases of AI and SDN are considered which include data plane, control plane, and application plane. Besides, the challenges and key technologies are introduced from three aspects:routing optimization, network security, and traffic engineering. Furthermore, the advantages and prospects of the intelligent software defined networking are analyzed via combining other emerging fields comparison, and some future research works are outlined.