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AIRA Review Guide: handling editor guidelines

Introducing AIRA Review Guide

AIRA Review Guide, an integrated AI assistant is now available to reviewers in the 'Reviewer' tab of our review forum. With suggested prompts to guide them, the chat interface offers reviewers a way to ask AIRA any question about the manuscript, helping them to summarize, extract claims, find gaps, and more.

Our position: AI elevates human review

AI has untapped potential to strengthen peer review. We believe that all individuals participating in peer review deserve access to safe, trusted tools that support high-quality research evaluation. AIRA is designed to augment - not replace - human expertise. Editors and reviewers remain responsible for the accuracy, fairness, and scientific rigor of the process. AI can improve clarity, guide consistency, and create efficiencies, but human judgment must always decide the final outcome.

Why peer review needs trusted AI

AI is entering peer review across our industry, and offers new ways to enhance the quality, consistency, and efficiency of research assessment.We’re taking a proactive step to pioneer responsible, expert-led integration of AI, setting clear policy, standards, and boundaries as the landscape evolves.

To ensure the intellectual property and privacy rights of our users remain fully protected, we have developed an in-house tool that does not share unpublished material or metadata with external AI tools, training models, or databases.

Your responsibilities as a handling editor

As a handling editor, you are responsible for overseeing the peer review process and ensuring that it meets Frontiers’ standards for scientific rigor, transparency, and ethical practice. The following guidelines outline your role, the usage of AI tools at Frontiers, and how AIRA Review Guide can be used responsibly during the peer review process.

1: Upholding policy.
Ensure that all peer reviewers and you comply with Frontiers' policies for using generative AI.

2: Protecting confidentiality.
Never upload or share research content, manuscripts or reviewer reports with external AI tools; this is a breach of our Authors’ intellectual property and personal privacy rights. Use only Frontiers’ AIRA Review Guide, the Review Forum tool that operates in a secure, closed system.

3: Monitor reviewer behavior.
Watch for signs that reviewers may be relying too heavily on AI tools. Red flags include:

  • inconsistent or out-of-context phrasing

  • repetitive or unnatural language

  • unexplained terminology

  • excessive grammatical markers (e.g. em dashes)

If you suspect inappropriate AI use, contact the peer review team.

4: Editorial decisions.
Responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and relevance of editorial decisions, revision requests, and correspondence remains with you. AIRA Review Guide can assist in the process but should not dictate outcomes.

What reviewers are accountable for

Forming independent judgments
Reviewers must use their own expertise as the basis for all decision recommendations and revision requests to the authors.

Responsible AI use
Reviewers may use AIRA Review Guide, Frontiers’ AI peer review assistant within review forum, and must not upload any manuscript content to external AI tools. Please consult the AI in Peer Review policy.

Authors' use of AI

Authors must declare in their acknowledgments (and methods if applicable) if they have used AI to generate any research or manuscript content. Handling editors should check these sections to ascertain whether AI has been used by the authors, and in what capacity.

Handling editors should use their judgement as to whether any use of AI has compromised data originality, accuracy, or ethical standards, and contact Frontiers' peer review team where there is uncertainty.

What to do if you identify a breach

Report immediately to Frontiers’ peer review team if you suspect improper AI use by authors or reviewers

By following these guidelines, you maintain the highest standards of scientific publishing at Frontiers.

Frontiers' AI usage

We are fully transparent about where and how AI is used across our workflows: any AI-powered features or assistants are clearly identified so that authors, editors, and reviewers know when they are interacting with AI-supported tools during peer review.