Announcements

Guideline for Responsible AI Usage

Published: 2026-11-13

Artificial intelligence (AI) is widely used in scholarly publishing. While improving the efficiency of scientific research and publishing operations, it has also introduced a series of publishing ethics and governance challenges. This guideline aims to provide a quick guidance to more standardized and responsible use of AI among the entire process of publication and dissemination of scholarly works across journals under AME Publishing Company.

Prior to formulating this guideline, we conducted an extensive research into the policies and discussions surrounding AI usage across multiple dimensions within the academic publishing community, including publishing peers, academic literature, academic organizations, ethics committees, and standards-setting bodies (1). The academic organizations, ethics committees, and standards-setting bodies covered in this research include the latest policies regarding AI usage from COPE, ICMJE, WAME, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (iSTIC), and the Chinese Medical Association, among others (2–17).

This guideline was developed based on the aforementioned research and will be updated in a timely manner according to ongoing developments in this area (such as AI evolution and updates in publishing regulations). Below is a brief summary of our guideline for authors, peer reviewers, publishers/editors, readers, media, and scholarly disseminators.

For the complete, detailed, and most up-to-date AME Publishing Company Guideline for Responsible AI Usage, please visit: https://www.amegroups.com/guideline-for-responsible-ai-usage.

The visual abstract of the latest guideline for responsible AI usage is available at:  https://www.amegroups.com/ame-ai-policy-visual-abstract.

We strongly recommend that stakeholders read and familiarize yourself with the complete and updated AI policy, as it encompasses not only general principles and requirements for responsible AI use, but also detailed stakeholder-specific policies for authors, reviewers, the publisher, editors, readers, media, and scholarly disseminates, and precise guidelines across all stages of academic publishing—including idea generation, study design, literature searching, data collection, statistical analysis, table/figure generation, manuscript drafting, language polishing, cover letter drafting, peer review, response letter drafting, manuscript revision, reviewing of revisions, editorial decision-making, technical and compliance review, content editorial review, reviewer matching, formatting, copy-editing, conference posters, social media dissemination, etc.

References*

  1. Xie S, Shang B, Hu Y, Jiang F, Chen Y, Zhang K. Policy consensus, disagreements, and gaps regarding the use of artificial intelligence in authors, reviewers, publishers, editors, readers, and scholarship dissemination: a narrative review focus on medical scholarly publishing, analyzing attitudes of 6 institutions, 8 publishers, 139 journals and hundreds of articles. Ann Transl Med 2026. doi: 10.21037/atm-2026-0169.
  2. Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Wolters Kluwer, et al. Guideline on the Boundaries of AIGC Usage in Academic Publishing 3.0 [Internet] 2025. Available online:  https://files.sciengine.com/gridfs/2001556325267406848/%E9%99%84%E4%BB%B61-%E5%AD%A6%E6%9C%AF%E5%87%BA%E7%89%88%E4%B8%ADAIGC%E4%BD%BF%E7%94%A8%E8%BE%B9.pdf
  3. ICMJE 2025 Recommendations Update . Available online:  https://www.synpharm.com/en/icmje-2025-recommendations-update/
  4. COPE Council. COPE position-Authorship and AI. Available online: https://doi.org/10.24318/cCVRZBms
  5. ICMJE. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals Updated January 2026. Available online: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/
  6. STM. Recommendations for a Classification of AI Use in Academic Manuscript Preparation [updated September 22, 2025. Available online: https://stm-assoc.org/document/recommendations-for-a-classification-of-ai-use-in-academic-manuscript-preparation/
  7. COPE Council. Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making. Available online:  https://doi.org/10.24318/9kvAgrnJ 
  8. COPE Council Member. Artificial intelligence and peer review. Available online:  https://publicationethics.org/guidance/seminar-and-webinar/artificial-intelligence-and-peer-review 
  9. Advice from COPE Members. Editors suspect that reviewers are using artificial intelligence. Available online: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/case/editors-suspect-reviewers-are-using-artificial-intelligence 
  10. COPE topic discussion. Emerging AI dilemmas in scholarly publishing. Available online:  https://publicationethics.org/topic-discussions/emerging-ai-dilemmas-scholarly-publishing
  11. Advice from COPE Council. Should there be limits to the editorial use of assistive AI tools? Available online: https://publicationethics.org/guidance/case/should-there-be-limits-editorial-use-assistive-ai-tools
  12. Chinese Medical Association. Regulations on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Technology in Paper Writing and Reviewing Processes. Available online: http://www.ircip.cn/bbx/993896-1711299.html?id=26645&newsid=5252883
  13. Zielinski C, Winker MA, Aggarwal R, et al. Chatbots, generative AI, and scholarly manuscripts: WAME recommendations on chatbots and generative artificial intelligence in relation to scholarly publications. Colomb Med (Cali) 2023;54:e1015868. Available online: https://wame.org/page3.php?id=106
  14. AI Ethics in Scholarly Communication | STM [updated May 10, 2021. Available online: https://stm-assoc.org/document/stm-ai-white-paper/
  15. Global Publishing and Journalism Organizations Unite to Release Comprehensive Global Principles for Artificial Intelligence (AI) [updated September 17, 2023]. Available online: https://stm-assoc.org/document/global-publishing-and-journalism-organizations-unite-to-release-comprehensive-global-principles-for-artificial-intelligence-ai/
  16. Generative AI In Scholarly Communications  [updated December 19, 2023]. Available online: https://stm-assoc.org/document/stm-generative-ai-paper-2023/
  17. STM Statement regarding unlicensed use of STM’s members’ content in the training, development, and operation of AI models [updated July 10, 2024]. Available online: https://stm-assoc.org/document/stm-statement-regarding-unlicensed-use-of-stms-members-content-in-the-training-development-and-operation-of-ai-models/

*Please note for better guidance and illustration, external links are included in the references but the journal does not endorse or take responsibility or liability for any content, advertising, products, or other materials on the externally linked sites, and does not take responsibility for the sites' availability.