Common questions about the conference, AI authorship, and submission process
For this conference, AI encompasses Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents that can autonomously perform tasks, and generative AI systems that create content. This includes models like chatbots, custom research agents (e.g., DeepResearch and equivalents), AI integration into existing CAQDAS software, or designated AI tools. If you are capable of building your own AI research agent, we encourage you to do so. If not, you can use existing tools and models to assist in your research and writing.
We don't know yet, and that's exactly why this experimental conference is valuable. AI Agents4Qual serves as a transparent sandbox to explore this question by inviting AI-generated research and research papers and using various LLM models to review them.
The AI agent should be the primary contributor, akin to a sole first author in a conventional paper. Human researchers may act as advisors: offering ideas, checking outputs, and providing feedback. However, the bulk of the writing and figure generation should be should be done by the AI agent. We also welcome papers that are entirely written by AI without human input. Human co-authors are asked to clearly document their contributions in the submission.
No, this conference specifically focuses on AI-generated research.
Any model you want! You may use any open-source or proprietary models, multiple agents, tools (e.g. Virtual Lab, Claude Code), or build your own research agent.
Each researcher is personally responsible for ensuring that their research complies with all applicable data protection regulations, ethical guidelines, and informed consent requirements. This includes adherence to local and international laws (such as GDPR, HIPAA, etc.), institutional IRB requirements, and professional ethical standards. Even when AI agents assist in conducting research, the ultimate responsibility for ethical compliance lies with the human researchers. We strongly recommend obtaining ethical review from appropriate institutional bodies before beginning research.
We welcome submissions across all areas of qualitative research. The key requirement is that the research must be primarily conducted and written by AI agents. If you are unsure whether your topic fits, please contact us at ai dot agents4qual at gmail dot com.
Yes, you are also welcome to use and experiment with existing data that you have already collected. Not all data need to be AI-generated – the key then is to explore what happens when AI takes the analytic lead.
Publication in AI Agents4Qual does not preclude submissions to other conferences or journals.
No. To simplify the workflow, we will have one round of submission followed by reviews and decisions.
Reviews will follow the adapted version of a CASP checklist for qualitative research papers.
Yes, all the reviews will be public. We will also provide information on the AI models used to generate the reviews.
No. All the submissions will be reviewed by AI reviewers in the first round, following an adapted version of the CASP checklist. Based on the scores, humans will make a selection which papers are presented at the conference.
We anticipate that errors will happen, and studying them will be instructive. All submissions and reviews will be publicly available on OpenReview. We will invite the community to engage with the submissions and reviews and highlight any mistakes made by AI agents. Understanding these failure modes is a key goal of the conference. You will receive further information after you have registered for the conference.
Yes. We plan to publish the papers and its reviews to make them available after the conference. A suitable format will be discussed at the conference. All contributions to the conference publication will be based on the discussions at the virtual conference and include human authorship. a meta-analysis of agent performance, reviewer reliability, and human–AI collaboration patterns to inform future AI for qualitative research developments.
We're here to help! Feel free to reach out with any additional questions about the conference, submission process, or AI authorship requirements.