Stanford professor to write peer reviews with AI starting December

Stanford professor Anshul Kundaje announced that starting in December he will use AI to help write as many paper reviews as possible within his specialty, beginning with 5-6 per month and potentially doubling that as efficiency improves. He shared his experience: after 2-3 rounds of iteration with frontier models the draft is ready, the output is more readable, and he personally reviews everything—combining the strengths of human and AI.

Confirmed

• The review plan starts in December, initially 5-6 per month, possibly doubling later, limited to his specialized subfield
• Workflow: 2-3 rounds of iteration with frontier models, producing review text fully vetted by him
• One concrete value point: AI often catches specific issues like mismatches between code and methods descriptions
• He chose Substack, with no money involved; after peers suggested he "just start a journal," he kept it free and informal
• He plans to organize roughly 15-20 PIs to join this AI-assisted reviewing movement, with no central control over who reviews what—purely voluntary participation
• He believes the movement could cover most (subjectively) interesting papers in his subfield, and sustained long term it will become a habit

Why It Matters

• This is a prominent scholar openly bringing frontier models into peer review at scale, offering first-hand reference for the feasibility and norms of AI-assisted academic reviewing
• If the voluntary collaboration model among 15-20 PIs works, it could spawn open reviewing practices outside the traditional journal system

2026-09-21 ~ 2026-09-21 · 5 related posts

• [source] Stanford professor plans AI-assisted peer reviews of 5-6 papers monthly — anshulkundaje · 2026-09-21
• Professor: 2-3 iterations with frontier models yields high-quality peer reviews — anshulkundaje · 2026-09-21
• [source] Stanford professor co-writes peer reviews with frontier models in 2-3 iterations, plans 15-20 PI network — anshulkundaje · 2026-09-21
• [source] Anshul Kundaje: community AI-assisted peer reviews to be run purely out of interest by 15-20 PIs — anshulkundaje · 2026-09-21
• Researcher to publish AI-assisted peer reviews from December, starting at 5-6 papers per month on Substack — anshulkundaje · 2026-09-21