Balancing Technological Advancement with Scientific Integrity
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly influencing the future of medical publication development. At ISMPP 2025, experts explored the evolving role of generative AI in scientific communications, highlighting its potential to increase efficiency while emphasizing the continued need for human oversight.
AI has shown promise in accelerating content development, reducing editorial workload, and enhancing efficacy and consistency. However, for peer-reviewed scientific work, human expertise remains the cornerstone of quality and credibility.
Current Best Practices in AI-Enhanced Publication Development
AI as an Editorial Assistant
- A practical workflow involves beginning with a draft written by an experienced publication professional and then using AI to improve readability, grammar, and flow. This hybrid model ensures both accuracy and efficiency.
Human Oversight is Critical
- AI-generated content must be thoroughly reviewed to identify hallucinations, inaccuracies, or unintended tone shifts. To maintain scientific and ethical standards, a qualified medical writer must validate all outputs.
Effective Prompting is Essential
- The emerging field of prompt engineering highlights the importance of well-crafted inputs to guide AI tools. This approach helps generate higher-quality outputs that reduce the time needed for human validation. Promising models—such as smart, adaptive interfaces that simplify complex tasks through guided questioning, or dual-agent systems where one AI prompts and another generates—offer exciting potential but still require human oversight and refinement.
Ethical and Legal Considerations
Many generative AI tools are trained on previously published content. It is crucial to ensure that any material used as part of generative AI inputs carries appropriate copyright licenses, such as CC-BY, which allows users to exercise rights as an author, if the work is cited. For additional information see ISMPP’s checklist.
We advise prioritizing the use of this checklist early in the publication development process and completing during project initiation. This ensures a rigorous evaluation of generative AI’s appropriateness and establishes clear guidelines for its responsible and effective application.
Disclosure Requirements
Transparency is critical. Disclosing AI involvement in the development of manuscripts is becoming a standard practice—and, increasingly, a requirement for submission to journals and congresses.
Upholding Standards in an Evolving Landscape
The conversation around generative AI in medical publications is evolving from a focus on novelty to one centered on responsible integration. At Herpsiegel, we recognize that the future of scientific communication will depend not just on technological advancement and integration but also on maintaining the standards of rigor, transparency, and trust that define credible medical publishing.
