Future Trends and Prospects for Scholarly Communication
Heather Lea Moulaison · 2025
As AI continues to improve and as AI-powered systems are increasingly used by scholars, authors, and publishers, changes will continue to emerge. AI is emerging as a trusted partner for scholars, and going forward, scholars might increasingly outsource work to AI. Already, well-established fields of study are refocusing or expanding to include AI as a topic; these will be areas to monitor moving forward. As for scholarly communication and authorship, change is inevitable, with new approaches to considering topics such as what it means to own text, how authorship is defined, and what the scholarly record might look like going forward. In addition, scholarly metrics stand to change dramatically in light of AI, as do the products of scholarly communication. Change is a constant in scholarly communication, as new approaches to technology affect authors, publishers, and readers. Until the promise of AI can be more thoroughly realized, though, writing with intelligence will continue to mean human scholars using AI intelligently – as a partner in the research and writing process. ***