AI Disclosure Statements for Journals: What to Say and What Not to Say
A one-line AI disclosure saying a tool "assisted with language editing" may be enough under one policy and incomplete under another. Two commonly cited standards ask for different levels of detail. By the time a manuscript reaches a journal narrowed down with a journal finder, the disclosure statement still needs a journal-specific check.
The ICMJE Baseline
ICMJE's recommendations require authors to disclose AI-assisted technologies at submission, in two places: the cover letter, and the manuscript section that matches what the tool actually did — writing assistance in acknowledgments, data handling or figure generation in methods. The same recommendations are explicit that a chatbot cannot be listed as an author, because it "cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality" of the work, and that authors remain responsible for reviewing AI output that "can generate authoritative-sounding output that can be incorrect."
That is a floor, not a template. It says where to disclose and who stays accountable. It does not specify what level of detail the disclosure sentence itself needs.
WAME Asks for More
WAME's recommendations go further on specifics. For AI-assisted text generation, authors should note the use in acknowledgments and specify "all prompts used to generate new text, or to convert text or text prompts into tables or illustrations." For AI-generated analytical results, WAME wants the AI's role stated in both the abstract and methods, with "the full prompt used to generate the research results, the time and date of query, and the AI tool used and its version." WAME extends the same transparency expectation to editors and reviewers using chatbots during evaluation.
A sentence that clears ICMJE's location requirement — say, "AI assistance was used for language editing" in the acknowledgments — does not clear WAME's bar, because it names no tool, no version, and no prompt.
What This Means for the Sentence You Actually Write
Check the target journal's own instructions first, then use ICMJE or WAME only to the extent that the journal adopts or points to them. If the journal requires disclosure but is silent on the level of detail, a more specific statement can reduce ambiguity: name the tool, identify what it was used for, and add version or prompt details when the applicable policy asks for them. Do not assume that one disclosure template is portable across journals.
What not to say is anything that reads as a blanket denial or a blanket admission with no scope — "no AI tools were used in any part of this manuscript" when a grammar checker touched the prose, or "AI assisted with this manuscript" with no indication of which section or task. Both invite exactly the query from an editor that a specific sentence would have avoided. See the authorship boundary these disclosure rules sit next to: disclosure covers what the tool did, not who counts as an author, and conflating the two produces a sentence that answers the wrong question.
Where the Sentence Lives
ICMJE's placement requirement puts the disclosure in the cover letter as well as the manuscript body, so the wording should still make sense as a standalone line outside the paper's context — the same document discussed in this cover-letter guide. If AI use later becomes a reviewer query, the Rebuttal Letter Framework ($7) provides reviewer-response language templates and a structured response framework; it does not replace the target journal's disclosure policy.