Navigating the AI Frontier: Developing Robust Governance Policies for Publishers, Authors, and Reviewers

Although every year in the scholarly publishing ecosystem is a balancing act of innovation, optimization, and value creation, 2025 is shaping up to be particularly challenging as the pace and scale of change is accelerating more than we’ve ever seen before. There is increasing pressure to provide value to and to meet the incredibly diverse needs of the global research community while maintaining financial health for our own organizations, living our values, and continuing to protect the scholarly record. With AI, open access, integrity, and mistrust frequently dominating the conversation, we are in the midst of an unprecedented shift in both our industry and society as a whole. As always, the SSP community continues to focus on bringing together academics, funders, librarians, publishers, service providers, technologists, researchers and countless others with a communal interest and stake in disseminating scholarly information. We look to the 47th Annual Meeting as an opportunity to continue this tradition and welcome all colleagues and community stakeholders.

Chirag “Jay” Patel is a business development professional with Cactus Global and specializes in working with publishers and professional societies on the implementation of AI solutions. He wants to improve the user experience by utilizing AI to better classify content, make content easier to discover and find, build custom content collections, simplify access, and personalize the content. He also leads the SDG initiative at CACTUS, which is a signatory of the SDG Publishers Compact. Before joining CACTUS he advised various startups developing solutions for advertising, virtual conferences, producing video content, and journal publishing. When he is not working on AI solutions, he likes to goof around with his kids, read, listen to a podcast, spend time in the garden, or go for a walk.

Chris Rudyj is the Director of Electronic Publishing & Product Development at the American College of Physicians. At ACP Chris is responsible for the development, production, and launch of new and enhanced publication features and services as well as overseeing the Annals of Internal Medicine’s electronic publication operations. Previously, she was Associate Director of Digital Product Management for Health Affairs where she held other publishing and technology-oriented roles during her time there. Chris enjoys learning and talking about the latest developments in technology and its practical as well as creative uses. Prior to transitioning to a career in scholarly publishing, Chris worked in the legal industry for almost 20 years, focusing on marketing and business development, and spearheaded several marketing technology and website projects. In her spare time, Chris is a violinist in the Reston Community Orchestra, one of DC metro’s community orchestras.

Paul Guinnessy serves as the Director of Digital Experience at the American Institute of Physics (AIP), where he drives the strategic evolution of the Digital Experience Platform (DXP). His role encompasses setting a vision for a cutting-edge audience engagement platform, ensuring that it aligns with AIP's organizational goals. Paul oversees the critical components of the DXP, while leading a dedicated digital team focused on best practices in user experience and data management. His responsibilities include fostering cross-functional collaboration to support digital initiatives and utilizing audience insights to enhance user engagement. With a commitment to quality assurance and data governance, he implements standards that promote operational efficiency and maintain user trust. He also manages vendor relationships and guides the technical oversight of the DXP, ensuring the integration of innovative digital solutions. A former scientist and journalist, lately he's figured out he spent way too much on ebooks last year.

Todd Ware has been working in book and journal publications for over 30 years. Working in product engineering, production, support and publishing management roles has given me a broad spectrum of knowledge and understanding of the industry. Project management, journal/book workflow Production, XML conversion, imaging, electronic delivery methods, archiving, AI, and content management are all areas I have worked as the industry grew and evolved. I have been an integral part of that evolution and I am excited to be a part of the continuous changes for the future.