The current consensus across most citation styles is to cite AI tools as "personal communication" because content from AI tools like ChatGPT is usually nonrecoverable or easily trackable unless it is directly from your account, so it cannot be retrieved or linked in your citation.
Here are ways to spot a citation that AI made up out of thin air:
Pro tip: Use Google to check a ChatGPT-generated citation. If you Google almost any real citation, you will quickly find evidence of the article online--you will see the article listed on the journal website, for example, or in the reference list of another article. By Googling a real citation, you can usually confirm that the article exists. That is not the case with ChatGPT hallucinatory citations. Try Googling one: copy and paste it in its entirety into Google, or try Googling the author along with a phrase from the title (put the title phrase inside quotation marks, so Google searches it as an exact phrase). If you search Google for an article based on an unreal citation, you usually can quickly determine that the article itself doesn't exist.
So please beware: ChatGPT and other AI can create citations that are worse than useless, because they're deceptive. The citations look real, but no actual, published article is connected to them.
For more information on AI and hallucinations see Don't be a victim of AI hallucinations.
AMA Style Guidance
The AMA Manual of Style includes guidance on AI in the following sections of Chapter 5 - Ethical and Legal Considerations: Section 5.1.12 - Use of Artificial Intelligence and Language Models; Section 5.2.1 - Acknowledging Support, Assistance, and Contributions of Those Who Are Not Authors; Section 5.2.1.1 - Acknowledgment of Use of Artificial Intelligence and Language Models in Writing and Editing. It is recommended to mention the use of AI tools in the Acknowledgements or Methods section of your paper, depending on what you used the tool for.
"Authors should report the use of artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies to create content or assist with writing or editing of manuscripts in the Acknowledgment section or the Methods section if this is part of formal research design or methods. This should include a description of the content that was created or edited and the name of the language model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. (Note: this does not include basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc.)" - Section 5.2.1.1
Formatting Citations in AMA Style
The AMA Manual of Style includes guidance on citing AI tools in Chapter 14 - Nomenclature , under Section 14.5.2 - Software. In research articles, provide the brand name in parentheses along with the version or extension number, manufacturer or owner, and date(s) used.
In-text example:
On June 12, 2023, the original full text of the question was put into a fresh chatbot session (ChatGPT, model GPT-4, OpenAI) and the generated responses were saved. Each question was posed to the chatbot interface 3 times and the generated responses were recorded.
At this time, APA recommends that text generated from AI be cited and formatted as "Personal Communication." More details regarding the guidelines on this topic can be found in a specific post on How to Cite ChatGPT written by the APA Style team.
As personal communication, it receives an in-text citation, but not an entry on the References list.
Personal Communication Rule: (Communicator, personal communication, Month Date, Year)
Parenthetical Citation Example:
(OpenAI, personal communication, July 17, 2023).
When describing the connection between cattle ranching and sustainability efforts, OpenAI's ChatGPT's response included ... (personal communication, June 15, 2023)
The Chicago Manual of Style editors have released a Q&A post on referencing AI-generated text to cite AI tools like ChatGPT within the text or in footnotes, but notes "don’t cite ChatGPT in a bibliography or reference list unless you provide a publicly available link."
Example:
Footnote: Note number. AI tool used, Month Day, Year, Creator of tool, URL.
In-text Author-Date Example:
In-text citation - narrative (author-prominent):
In-text citation - parenthetical (information-prominent):
Reference list entry example - shareable URL generated by the AI tool:
From "How do I cite generative AI in MLA style?":
The MLA’s method for citing sources uses a template of core elements—standardized criteria that writers can use to evaluate sources and create works-cited-list entries based on that evaluation. That new technologies like ChatGPT emerge is a key reason why the MLA has adopted this approach to citation—to give writers flexibility to apply the style when they encounter new types of sources.
This blog post is from March 17, 2023 and is currently the most up-to-date guidance on citing AI tools in MLA style.
They do state: "We do not recommend treating the AI tool as an author. This recommendation follows the policies developed by various publishers, including the MLA’s journal PMLA."
Parts of this guide are adapted (with changes) or reused from a guide created by Bronte Chiang at the University of Calgary and a guide created by Julie Harding and Robert Miller, UMGC Library. The University of Calgary guide is under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.