The Next Transformation: Generative AI and Academic Publishing

In January 2024, the library research and consulting organization Ithaka S+R released a report on what they referred to as the “second digital transformation” of scholarly publishing. Touching on many of the themes and topics discussed in this chalter, the second digital transformation is framed as a revamping of the structures, workflows, incentives and outputs that characterized the print era. Noting that the first digital transformation occurred with the advent of the internet, the authors point out that the initial shift from print to digital did not immediately result in new modes of publishing, with scholars and publishers alike clinging to limiting conceptual models that privilege the peer reviewed article as the preeminent scholarly output and resist the democratization of knowledge discovery and dissemination.^[1]

In October 2024, Ithaka S+R released another report, entitled “A Third Transformation? Generative AI and Scholarly Publishing.” Among other things, this report notes that while at the time they were conducting interviews (in early 2023) for their earlier publication there was talk of generative AI (GenAI), among participants: “it was just beginning to make its presence felt in academia and society” but since then, it has become “inescapable”.^[2] In other words, while the initial transformative effects of the shift to digital took twenty plus years to emerge, developments in GenAI have taken only a year to have a significant impact on academic publishing. Because of the rapid pace of change, academic publishing stakeholders are still struggling to make sense of the potential that GenAI has to transform publishing. First movers have begun to incorporate GenAI into their products and service offerings, while publishers and academic institutions are attempting to address the ethical considerations of GenAI through policy and procedure revisions.

At the time of writing this chatper (early 2025), it is not yet apparent how disruptive artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular GenAI, will be to the scholarly publishing ecosystem or the advancement of open access (OA). However, we have begun to see the ways that publishers and authors are starting to navigate both the opportunities and challenges posed by AI.

Opportunities

• Streamlining of editorial processes and the deployment of AI for things like peer review and copy-editing
• AI-enhanced search and discovery tools like Elsevier’s Scopus AI and Consensus can help researchers find and synthesize information
• New revenue streams, as publishers can license their intellectual property for AI training

Challenges

• The use of AI to manipulate the publishing process, including generating fake data and manuscripts or manipulated images
• Increases in the scope and scale of predatory practices such as “paper mills”
• “Enshittification” of the scholarly record and threats to scientific integrity

Dig Deeper To learn more about the impacts of AI on academic publishing, review: Bergstrom, T., & Ruediger, D. (2024, October 30). A Third Transformation?: Generative AI and Scholarly Publishing. Ithaka S+R. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.321519