Artificial Intelligence for Academic Writing: A Bibliometric Analysis (2022–2026)

Abstract

Academic writing practices in education have changed significantly since the advent of artificial intelligence. AI technologies provide new possibilities for fostering student learning, feedback mechanisms, and student engagement. However, studies of AI supported academic writing are still scattered in the education literature and have yet to be synthesized. Within this context, the present study adopts a bibliometric approach to explore research trends, thematic developments and the evolving knowledge structure of AI for academic writing. English-language journal articles published between 2022 and 2026 were identified through an initial Scopus search, after which 397 articles were retained for analysis. Scopus Analyser was used to identify publication trends and descriptive statistics, OpenRefine to clean and standardise bibliographic data and VOSviewer to visualise author collaboration networks, international research collaborations and keyword co-occurrence patterns. The results show a significant growth in publishing capacity after 2022 in line with the rapid development of generative AI technologies. Publication output and international collaborations are concentrated in China and the United States. Keyword co-occurrence analysis shows that the core thematic clusters include academic writing, formative feedback, metacognitive support, argumentation development and academic integrity. Although research on AI-supported academic writing has grown rapidly, attention to discipline-specific writing contexts is still relatively limited. Overall, the results suggest that AI can be leveraged to enhance academic writing pedagogy through technology integration, streamlined feedback mechanisms and greater student participation. Effective implementation still relies on informed direct instruction, ethics around AI use and the creation of AI toolkits to meet academic writing goals. This paper provides a systematic overview of previous research and evidence-based considerations relevant to future AI supported academic writing research.