Who Is Responsible for Every Claim in an AI-Assisted Response-to-Reviewers Letter?

Who Is Accountable When AI Helps Write a Response to Peer Reviewers?

You receive a decision letter containing several pages of reviewer comments. To organize the revisions and prepare a professional response, you ask generative AI to help draft your point-by-point rebuttal.

The resulting letter sounds convincing. It explains your methodological choices, thanks the reviewers, and describes changes supposedly made to the manuscript. But who is responsible if one of those explanations is inaccurate, a revision was never completed, or the AI invents a justification that the authors cannot defend?

This question matters because a response-to-reviewers letter is not simply correspondence. It is part of the scholarly record surrounding editorial evaluation and may influence whether a manuscript is accepted, revised again, or rejected.

The Authors Remain Responsible for Every Claim

How Scholarly Accountability Applies to AI-Assisted Reviewer Responses

AI Assistance Does Not Transfer Authorship or Accountability

Generative AI can help organize reviewer comments, suggest clearer wording, and prepare draft responses. However, these functions do not make an AI system a scholarly author or an accountable participant in the editorial process.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) explains that AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of scholarly work. Its recommendations also require human authors to review and edit AI-generated material carefully.

These principles are relevant to reviewer-response letters, although the specific disclosure requirements for such correspondence may differ among journals and publishers.

An author cannot reasonably defend an inaccurate statement by explaining that the AI generated it. Once a claim is included in the submitted response, the authors have adopted that claim as part of their communication with the journal.

What Exactly Are Authors Responsible for Verifying?

A response letter contains several kinds of statements, and each requires an appropriate form of verification.

The central principle is straightforward: a polished response is not necessarily an accurate response. Its credibility depends on the underlying evidence and the revised manuscript.

The Corresponding Author Has an Important Coordination Role

The corresponding author commonly manages communication with the journal and coordinates the submission of revised materials. This role makes the corresponding author particularly important in ensuring that the final response letter has been checked.

However, corresponding authorship does not automatically make one individual the sole person responsible for every specialized claim.

For example, a statistician who conducted an additional analysis should verify the explanation of that analysis. An author responsible for data collection should confirm claims about recruitment or sampling. The corresponding author should ensure that these confirmations have been incorporated before submission.

Specific responsibilities may depend on journal policies, institutional requirements, and the authors' agreed contributions. Coauthors should have an opportunity to review substantive responses that concern their work.

AI Can Describe Revisions That Were Never Made

One particularly consequential problem occurs when AI generates a plausible response describing an action that has not actually taken place.

For instance, a reviewer requests additional information about missing data. An AI-generated response might state that the authors conducted a multiple-imputation analysis and incorporated the results into the manuscript, even though no such analysis was performed.

This is not merely an awkward wording problem. If submitted without correction, the statement misrepresents the research record.

Researchers should therefore distinguish between revisions promised in a response letter and revisions that have been completed and verified. AI-generated descriptions of manuscript changes should never be accepted solely because they sound plausible.

Every Response Should Be Traceable to the Revised Manuscript

A useful verification practice is to connect each substantive reviewer response to a specific piece of evidence.

That evidence may be a revised paragraph, a new table, an updated figure, a statistical output, an analysis script, or a documented explanation of why a requested change was not adopted.

For each reviewer concern, the authors should be able to answer two questions: What did we actually do, and where can the editor or reviewer verify it?

This approach helps prevent invented manuscript changes and makes the response easier for reviewers to evaluate.

Authors Must Also Verify Statements Explaining Disagreement

Not every reviewer recommendation needs to be accepted. Authors may have legitimate methodological, theoretical, or practical reasons for disagreeing.

AI can help express that disagreement professionally. It cannot determine whether the authors' reasoning is scientifically defensible merely by producing persuasive prose.

If an AI-generated response argues that a requested analysis would violate statistical assumptions, the authors must verify that those assumptions are relevant and that the explanation accurately reflects their data.

Similarly, an AI-generated citation should not be used without checking the original source. A nonexistent reference or a misrepresented publication can undermine an otherwise reasonable response.

The responsibility extends to ensuring that the response does not overstate how fully a reviewer concern has been addressed.

Disclosure and Accountability Are Related but Different Obligations

Some journals and publishers require disclosure of particular uses of generative AI. Others distinguish between language assistance and substantive content generation. Policies may also differ between manuscripts and accompanying editorial correspondence.

Researchers should consult the current instructions of the target journal rather than assume that one disclosure rule applies everywhere.

Disclosure does not replace verification. Even when AI assistance is appropriately acknowledged, the authors remain responsible for the statements they submit.

Conversely, the absence of an explicit disclosure requirement does not authorize authors to submit unchecked AI-generated claims.

Confidentiality Remains a Separate Responsibility

Reviewer comments, unpublished manuscript content, and editorial correspondence may contain confidential information. Authors should consider journal requirements, institutional rules, data protection obligations, and the AI provider's data-handling terms before uploading such material.

The fact that an author legitimately possesses a reviewer report does not automatically establish that it may be shared with every third-party AI service.

Where disclosure to an external service is restricted, researchers should use an approved environment or prepare the response without uploading protected material.

When AI Claims an Additional Analysis Was Completed

The problem is not that AI helped write the response. The problem would arise if the authors submitted unsupported claims without verification.

A response letter can be courteous and grammatically impeccable while being factually wrong. Peer review, unfortunately, does not award extra points for elegant fiction.

Misunderstandings About Responsibility for AI-Assisted Responses

How to Use AI Without Losing Control of Your Reviewer Responses

The safest approach is to treat generative AI as a drafting assistant rather than the authority deciding what the research team has done.

Before asking AI to prepare a response, establish the actual status of each reviewer request. Record whether the concern has been addressed, partially addressed, or not adopted, together with the evidence supporting that decision.

Before submission, conduct an independent consistency check between the revised manuscript and response letter. This can be performed by a coauthor who was not primarily responsible for drafting the responses.

The final letter should reflect what the authors can substantiate, not what an AI system predicts a satisfactory response should sound like.

Author Accountability Checklist Before Resubmission

Frequently Asked Questions About Accountability in AI-Assisted Reviewer Responses

AI May Help Draft the Response, but Authors Must Defend Every Claim

How to Cite This Guide

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