There are four commonly used types of applications for nitinol:
; Free recovery
: Nitinol is deformed at a low temperature, remains deformed, and then is heated to recover its original shape through the shape memory effect.
; Constrained recovery
:  Similar to free recovery, except that recovery is rigidly prevented and thus a stress is generated.
; Work production
: The alloy is allowed to recover, but to do so it must act against a force (thus doing work).
; Superelasticity
: Nitinol acts as a super spring through the superelastic effect. 
Superelastic materials undergo stress-induced transformation and are commonly recognized for their "shape-memory" property. Due to its superelasticity, NiTi wires exhibit "elastocaloric" effect, which is stress-triggered heating/cooling. NiTi wires are currently under research as the most promising material for the technology. The process begins with tensile loading on the wire, which causes fluid (within the wire) to flow to  HHEX (hot heat exchanger). Simultaneously, heat will be expelled, which can be used to heat the surrounding. In the reverse process, tensile unloading of the wire leads to fluid flowing to CHEX (cold heat exchanger), causing the NiTi wire to absorb heat from the surrounding. Therefore, the temperature of the surrounding can be decreased (cooled).
Elastocaloric devices are often compared with magnetocaloric devices as new methods of efficient heating/cooling. Elastocaloric device made with NiTi wires has an advantage over magnetocaloric device made with gadolinium due to its specific cooling power (at 2 Hz), which is 70X better (7 kWh/kg vs. 0.1 kWh/kg). However, elastocaloric device made with NiTi wires also have limitations, such as its short fatigue life and dependency on large tensile forces (energy consuming).
In 1989 a survey was conducted in the United States and Canada that involved seven organizations. The survey focused on predicting the future technology, market, and applications of SMAs. The companies predicted the following uses of nitinol in a decreasing order of importance: (1) Couplings, (2) Biomedical and medical, (3) Toys, demonstration, novelty items, (4) Actuators, (5) Heat Engines, (6) Sensors, (7) Cryogenically activated die and bubble memory sockets, and finally (8) lifting devices.