As we enter the fifth month of 2026, now feels like a good time to consider what we can expect to see in scholarly publishing throughout the remainder of the year.
To begin making predictions for a new year, it is always helpful to take a minute and reflect on the previous one. 2025 brought about significant changes to an already evolving landscape, most notably the development and rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI has impacted a lot of industries, the publishing world has been no exception.
In 2025, a notable impact of AI on publishing was a drop in click-through rate (CTR). According to Google, CTR is defined as “a digital marketing metric that measures the percentage of people who click on a link, ad, or email after seeing it. It indicates how effectively content grabs attention.” Google launched its AI-generated search summary called “AI Overviews” in May 2024. As AI Overview turned a year old, publishers noted a significant decrease in CTR for their websites. In an article titled “Here are the biggest moments in AI for publishers in 2025” author Sara Guaglione wrote the following, “publishers began to quantify the impact AI Overviews was having on their clickthroughs from search, with some reporting 50-90% lower CTRs when an AI summary appeared. In August, Digital Content Next found AI Overviews were linked to a 25% drop in referral traffic. The future of “zero-click search” started to materialize, and it wasn’t pretty.”
Notably, this became a topic of discussion among scholarly publishing seminars throughout 2025, and a conversation about how to address this issue began. In 2026, I think we can expect to see publishers addressing this issue more directly and coming up with solutions, such as more direct marketing approaches with authors and viewers and implementing AI restrictions on websites when able.
AI integration for authors and reviewers was also a big topic of discussion among publishers last year. I do not see that conversation slowing down in 2026. Rather, I expect publishers to continue developing and implementing clearer guidelines surrounding AI use for both authors and reviewers. As AI becomes more embedded in publishing workflows, I believe publishers will likely establish stricter standards for these tools moving forward.
Licensing, in particular open access licensing, is another popular topic in publishing. Open access is a type of licensing that enables authors to make their research, articles, data, etc., freely available to users. A recent article highlights this trend, “Open Access Trends in Scholarly Publishing 2015–2024.”The author notes that “From 2015 to 2023, the share of OA publications steadily increased from 22% to a peak of 59%.”While a dip was noted in 2024, the author noted that this may be due to embargo timing, indexing delays, and publisher strategy rather than a true decrease in OA adoption.
This article breaks down the differences in OA models as well, the different models being Gold OA, Hybrid OA, and Bronze, Green, and Diamond OA. The main distinctions among these open access models concern reuse and who pays the article processing charge (APC). For instance, Gold OA is typically paid for by the author and provides immediate free access to readers who can legally copy, distribute, or build upon the work as long as the original author is credited. Diamond OA is free to read and publish, and the funding is normally provided by institutions or societies. Green OA is where the author can post a version of their manuscript in a free, public repository, but it may have an embargo period set by the publisher, and the author does not typically pay the fee. Hybrid models allow an author to either pay a fee to make their article freely available or choose not to pay and keep it behind the publisher’s paywall. Lastly, Bronze OA is where articles are free to read on the publisher’s website, but reuse licenses are usually restricted, and the author does not typically pay a fee. It is noted that Gold OA“grew from 29% in 2015 to 45% in 2024 [and] Hybrid OA increased from 12% (2015) to 24% (2024).” The article also observed a steady decline in Bronze, Green, and Diamond OA.
Following this trend, I predict that Gold OA and Hybrid models will continue to grow in 2026. While open access models can face criticism due to high APCs for authors, their accessibility and flexible reuse rights suggest they are here to stay and will only grow in popularity.
The final trend I wanted to touch on regarding publishing in 2026 relates to conference topics. Popular industry groups, such as the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) or the Council of Science Editors (CSE), host yearly conferences to discuss important topics in the publishing industry. Last year, SSP covered topics such as AI in peer review, safeguarding research integrity, and data-driven analysis. CSE covered similar topics, including one on resources for integrating DEIA into scholarly communications.
This year, I predict that conferences will be taking a deeper dive into the same ideas. AI has only continued to grow, and publishers are still ironing out best practices on how to integrate AI. I also predict that conferences and seminars will take a closer look into data assessment. With the growing use of AI, there is also a rising amount of data for publishers to sink their teeth into. Knowing what type of data to focus on, and which might constitute “AI-slop”, will be an important skill in the workforce now and in the future.
While we are already 5 months into the new year, it still feels that a lot for 2026 is unpredictable. However, just as the year is evolving, so is the publishing industry, and the months ahead will surely bring more change and innovation. It will be interesting to see which trends continue to develop and how publishers adapt to a changing landscape!
By Emma Montes
