As AI reshapes the publishing landscape, no organization can navigate it alone. Publishers will increasingly look to external partners to build and integrate the GenAI tools that fall outside their core competencies, making strategic partnerships less of a competitive advantage and more of a baseline requirement for survival. That means making thoughtful decisions about what to build, what to adopt, and who to collaborate with, while pushing for better integration across an ecosystem that can feel overwhelming in its complexity. Taken together, these perspectives point toward a more interconnected, partner-led scholarly publishing ecosystem, where the publisher's role evolves from independent operator to something closer to a curator of best-in-class capabilities.
Here's our contributors' predictions on how partnerships will shape technology trends in 2026:
"Many publishers lack the expertise to build tools around GenAI in house, and may find that doing so is outside their core competencies. They will increasingly look to external partners for solutions as these new technologies are integrated into their workflows." —Michael Di Natale, Director, Journal Production and Platform, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
"Partnerships help innovation happen faster. However, the number of potential partners in the STM publishing ecosystem today is overwhelming--one can do only so many pilots. I would like to see some consolidation and better (easier) integration among various partner-provided tools." —Dawn Melley, Senior Director, Publishing Operations, IEEE
"Partnerships will be critical for publishers; most will not need to create their own AI tools, except in specific use cases, and should be partnering with those with expertise to ensure they are getting the best tools and services for their users." —Nancy Roberts, Head of Tech & Content, Maverick
"My hope is that partners can demonstrate the art of the possible." —Ian Mulvany, CTO, BMJ Group
"No one has the brain space or money to build on their own. Partnerships with experts will be the key" —David Haber, Publishing Ops Director, American Society for Microbiology
“Society publishers, and small publishers in general, need to partner and collaborate in order to survive and thrive. They have more choice of independent vendors than ever before.” —James Butcher, Director, Journalology
“AI companies desperately need quality content while publishers need modern distribution channels, creating natural partnership opportunities. Technology companies understand AI and publishers understand research, so those who successfully bridge this gap will shape the next decade.” —Jeremy Little, AI Technology Lead, Silverchair
“Collaborations with services like ORCID and Crossref will make research workflows smoother by connecting author identities, article data, and impact metrics. The most powerful partnerships will combine strong data governance with advanced AI, building systems that are fast, transparent, and trusted by the entire community.” —Teo Pulvirenti, Vice President, Global Editorial Strategy, ACS Publications
"Publishers will have to partner extensively to survive the current moment of disruption -- it's just not feasible for publishers to build the vast toolkits they need in-house. Vendor partnerships will take on more and more strategic importance, whether its for manuscript screening, marketing, or platforms." —Jessica Miles, Founder, The Informed Frontier
"We're on the cusp of a massive change in the core publishing infrastructure, and publishers are going to have to make some hard calls--what to adapt to current workflows; what to add; what to abandon; what to develop internally; what to partner on. AI and data tools are now essential, core infrastructure for all publishers. This will be a tougher decision for medium-sized publishers, where the answers may be less obvious. I think we'll see a lot of new entrants into this space. That will present come complexity in 2026." —John Challice, SVP, Business Development, Hum
Read the full 2026 Publishing Tech Trends Report, and subscribe to our newsletter for more insights.