Artificial Intelligence in Publishing in 2025: Policy Orientation, Theoretical Research, and Industry Practice

This paper presents a 2025 development report on artificial intelligence application in the publishing industry and argues that 2025 constitutes a critical year of deep integration between AI and publishing. The paper organizes its argument around three linked domains—policy orientation, theoretical research, and industry practice—and uses this tripartite structure to translate a broad "AI wave" into a structured account of how governance, scholarship, and deployment co-evolve. On the policy side, the paper states that multiple "AI Plus publishing" policies were introduced and that these policies guide industrial transformation and upgrading through an explicit pathway: top-level design, innovation support, copyright protection, and standardized dissemination. The emphasis is on governance sequencing. "top-level design" is positioned as the upstream orientation that defines direction and coordination; "innovation support" functions as the enabling condition for exploration and scaling; "copyright protection" becomes the boundary mechanism that stabilizes legitimacy and protects rights allocation; and "standardized dissemination" anchors the downstream requirement for orderly communication and governance of publishing outputs. This pathway is presented as a policy logic that makes AI adoption governable rather than purely technological. On the theoretical research side, the paper claims a concentration of research themes, an increase in publication volume to a historical high, and a deepening of research depth. Instead of remaining at general statements, the paper structures "deepening" as a mechanism of topic consolidation: research is portrayed as becoming more focused, more systematic, and more oriented toward operational problems that AI introduces into publishing, thereby forming a knowledge base that can communicate with industry practice. On the industry practice side, the paper describes AI as enabling publishing deployment across multiple directions, including governance mechanisms, technological application, and operational innovation. At the level of future development, the paper argues for "upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground" as a guiding orientation and specifies several action directions: industrial coordination mechanisms, institutional governance improvement, business model exploration, composite talent cultivation, and human–AI collaboration models. The logic is that AI-enabled upgrading must maintain a unity of technological upgrading and cultural integrity; otherwise, automation could erode the cultural commitments that publishing carries. The paper concludes by positioning high-quality development as the objective and system advancement as the method: the publishing industry should not merely "use AI, " but should systemically promote AI integration through policy guidance, research accumulation, and practice deployment while ensuring that governance, rights protection, dissemination order, and cultural responsibility remain integral to the AI-enabled transformation trajectory in 2025 and beyond.