AI for Society opens as interdisciplinary journal covering education, governance and AI

The new international open-access journal will publish work across six fields, including AI in education, health, employment, politics, technical research, and regulation

AI for Society has begun publishing interdisciplinary open-access research examining artificial intelligence across education, health, industry, governance, and other areas of society

A new open-access academic journal, AI for Society, has begun publishing interdisciplinary research examining artificial intelligence alongside its effects on people, institutions, economies, and public life.

The journal's inaugural message was published by Yi Li, Editor-in-Chief of AI for Society and a researcher in the Department of Materials at The University of Manchester in the UK. Rather than treating AI primarily as a technical research field, the publication is structured around six themes spanning fundamental AI science, the economy and industry, education and culture, health, politics and geopolitics, and governance and law.

That scope puts education alongside technical AI development rather than treating it as a downstream application. One of the journal's six areas is dedicated to AI for Education, Humanities, Arts, Philosophy and Communication.

Li writes: "Generative and other forms of AI are changing knowledge production, education, libraries, language, media, artistic practice, design, fashion and cultural participation."

The journal plans to publish original research articles, reviews, concept papers, and other scholarly contributions, with no maximum submission length. It is also positioning open access as part of its model for widening participation in AI research beyond institutions with greater financial and technological resources.

"Open access is fundamental to our mission," Li states. "Questions about AI affect communities, institutions and countries with widely differing levels of resources and technological capacity."

Six fields instead of a single AI discipline

The structure of AI for Society reflects an argument running through its inaugural editorial: some of the questions emerging around artificial intelligence cannot be addressed adequately from computer science alone.

Its first thematic field covers areas including machine learning, robotics, human-computer interaction, engineering, modeling and simulation, and security systems.

A second focuses on employment, markets, industry, management, sustainability, and global supply chains. The journal points to research from the International Labour Organization on generative AI and occupational exposure, with attention expected to extend beyond automation to job quality, skills, and institutional adaptation.

Education sits within the third field, alongside the humanities, arts, philosophy, and communication. Its remit includes knowledge production, libraries, language, media, artistic practice, design, and questions around creativity, authorship, values, and meaning.

Other areas cover AI in medicine and mental healthcare; its influence on social structures, politics, international relations, and autonomous weapons; and AI governance issues including accountability, privacy, algorithmic bias, deepfakes, disinformation, corporate responsibility, and regulation.

Li describes the principle behind the journal more broadly: "artificial intelligence must be studied not only as a collection of technologies, but also as a scientific question, a social force, an economic infrastructure, a cultural phenomenon and an object of governance."

Education research sits alongside governance and technical AI

For education researchers, the remit is deliberately broad. The journal's scope does not restrict the subject to AI tools used in classrooms. It places education within questions about how AI changes the production of knowledge, culture, communication, and human decision making.

The inaugural message also cites UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in arguing that education and the humanities belong within serious AI scholarship.

That interdisciplinary structure is intended to carry through to how the journal is run. AI for Society says it plans to build international editorial teams and encourage research that crosses disciplinary, institutional, sector, and national boundaries while retaining specialist methodological standards.

Its stated plans include special issues on emerging and under-examined topics, opportunities for younger academic researchers, international research collaboration, and stronger connections between research, public policy, professional practice, and societal experience.

The publication also intends to develop conferences, peer-reviewed proceedings, research monographs, reports, and policy assessment reports as the journal develops.

Li sets a broader benchmark for that work beyond the number of papers published: "Our measure of success will not be publication volume alone. It will be whether the journal helps researchers ask better questions, enables disciplines to learn from one another, brings greater international diversity into AI scholarship and produces knowledge that improves decisions affecting society."

AI for Society is an international open-access journal and began its first volume in 2026, with its inaugural message published on August 12.