Smaller, Younger, and More Impactful: How AI-Assisted Writing Transforms Research Teams 文章

arXiv:2605.27404v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The era of Big Science has long been defined by increasingly large and specialized research teams pushing the frontiers of knowledge. However, recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), are beginning to reshape academic writing and scientific research, potentially disrupting the longstanding trend toward ever-larger teams and transforming other dimensions of research team structure. Drawing on 147,074 full-text publications from the PLoS family and the Nature portfolio since 2020, we examined whether and how AI-assisted writing influences team structure and team outcomes in science. Using multiple methods, including ordinary least square, quantile regression, Poisson regression, logistic regression and propensity score matching, we found that research teams using AI-assisted writing tend to be younger and smaller.