AI-assisted paper surge is overwhelming peer review, report finds

A surge in research submissions, including AI-assisted papers, is straining the volunteer peer-review system that underpins academic publishing. Reviewers are struggling to keep pace with the growing volume, raising concerns about the process's ability to maintain quality control.

Why it matters: This compounds an existing crack in science's ability to keep pace with AI: as covered previously, AI coding agents can speed up research software without necessarily verifying the underlying science, and now the review layer meant to catch errors is itself buckling under AI-driven volume. Together these trends suggest a widening gap between how fast AI lets researchers produce work and how carefully that work can be checked before publication.