With the unique and combined mechanical, physical and chemical properties of copper and steel, the copper–steel functional materials are widely used in aerospace, power industries, biomedical and other fields. However, the applications of copper–steel functional materials are restricted due to the limitations in producing parts with complex structural design and easy macro segregation at the copper–steel composite interface via traditional methods such as melting and casting. Different from the traditional methods, metal additive manufacturing technology has more advantages in manufacturing copper–steel functional material parts, including capability of complex structure formation and effective alleviation of segregation and other defects at the copper–steel interface attributed to the relatively rapid cooling and solidification process, resulting in the enhancement of interface bonding strength. Based on the recent research progress in the preparation of copper–steel functional materials by various additive manufacturing technologies, the key problems of defects derivation and forming quality of copper–steel functional materials additive manufacturing are analyzed, the practical application scenarios are summarized, and its development trend is prospected.