Fibre placement is a research hot spot for the intelligent manufacturing of advanced composites, and the efficiency of fibre placement has become an important index to evaluate the performance and cost of composite products. The traditional fibre placement method is mainly based on fibre winding (FW). However, the quality stability and placement efficiency are both higher in automated fibre placement (AFP) than in FW. Accordingly, a detailed discussion on this issue is provided herein. In this review, the concept and main research areas of AFP are introduced, a comprehensive literature review on the key AFP technologies is presented, and the characteristics for these key technologies are analysed. Then, the current AFP research status in various countries is investigated and compared, and the existing problems and future development trends are noted. Finally, the large-scale application prospects of AFP in high-performance fields (e.g. aerospace) are forecasted, and some new methods and new ideas for improving the performance of fibre placement systems are proposed, including the application of induction welding to enhance the modular function of the placement head device and the comprehensive utilization of 3D printing and topology optimization for composite fibre placement.