COUNTER Metrics Releases Phase Two of AI Best Practice

NISO Member News

As the use of generative and agentic AI systems to access scholarly content grows, so does the need for better tracking of this activity. COUNTER's latest effort on this front is an update to its Best Practice guidelines for tracking AI access to content. The guidelines now cover usage generated by third-party AI tools as well as AI activity on publisher sites; the Best Practice revision also provides new Retrieval Metrics.

COUNTER's next steps include updating its API and JSON Schema; this work is supported by the TRACE initiative, an industry collaboration to address challenges rising from the use of AI in scholarly publishing. (NISO's work to develop a minimum metadata model for tracking provenance and attribution in AI systems is another work stream supported by TRACE.)

Visit the COUNTER Metrics website for the full announcement. COUNTER member organizations will be invited to attend webinars on the Best Practice updates, to be hosted early next year.