LaTeX Tutorial for AI Usage Cards

What You Will Build

By the end of this tutorial, you will have a professional AI Usage Card embedded directly in your LaTeX paper. The card documents which AI tools you used, what tasks they performed, and how you verified their outputs. It follows the standardized format introduced at JCDL 2023 and is recognized by a growing number of journals and conferences.

If you use Overleaf rather than a local LaTeX installation, you may prefer our Overleaf guide instead. Both approaches produce the same result.

Step 1. Download the Package

The ai-usage-card package is a single .sty file. Download it from the link below and place it in the same directory as your main .tex file.

Download here. ai-usage-card.sty

Your project directory should look something like this.

my-paper/
├── main.tex
├── ai-usage-card.sty
├── references.bib
└── figures/

If you prefer to install it system-wide, place the file in your local texmf tree (for example, ~/texmf/tex/latex/ai-usage-card/ai-usage-card.sty) and run texhash. For most users, placing it alongside your .tex file is simplest.

Step 2. Load the Package

Add the following line to your document preamble, after your other \usepackage declarations.

\usepackage{ai-usage-card}

The package depends on xcolor, tcolorbox, enumitem, and hyperref. Most modern LaTeX distributions include all of these. If you get a missing package error, install the relevant package through your TeX distribution's package manager.

Step 3. Create Your First AI Usage Card

The package provides the aicard environment, which you populate using a set of section commands. Here is a minimal example that documents a researcher who used ChatGPT for writing assistance.

\begin{aicard}{My Research Paper Title}
 
\aicardauthors{Jane Smith, University of Example}
 
\aicardtools{
  \aitool{ChatGPT}{GPT-4, OpenAI}{Web interface}{January--March 2026}
}
 
\aicardmethodology{
  AI tools were not used in the research methodology
  or experimental design for this project.
}
 
\aicardwriting{
  ChatGPT (GPT-4) was used to improve the clarity
  and grammar of the manuscript draft. The author,
  a non-native English speaker, used the tool to
  suggest alternative phrasings for selected paragraphs
  in Sections 3 and 5. All suggestions were reviewed
  individually and many were discarded or rewritten.
  The intellectual content and argumentation are
  entirely the author's own work.
}
 
\aicardethics{
  No research data was shared with the AI tool.
  Only draft text was submitted for language feedback.
  The author reviewed all outputs for accuracy and
  potential bias in language choices.
}
 
\end{aicard}

This produces a neatly formatted card with four clearly labeled sections. Each command fills in one part of the standardized AI Usage Card format.

Understanding the Commands

Here is what each command does.

\begin{aicard}{Title} opens the card environment. The argument is the title of your project or paper.

\aicardauthors{...} lists the authors and their affiliations. This connects the card to the people responsible for the AI usage decisions.

\aicardtools{...} is a container for one or more \aitool entries. Each \aitool takes four arguments.

\aitool{Tool Name}{Model/Version}{Access Method}{Time Period}

For example.

\aitool{GitHub Copilot}{v1.138, OpenAI Codex}{VS Code extension}{Sept 2025--Feb 2026}
\aitool{ChatGPT}{GPT-4o, OpenAI}{Web interface}{October 2025}
\aitool{Claude}{Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Anthropic}{API}{November 2025--January 2026}

\aicardmethodology{...} describes any AI involvement in your research design, data collection, or analysis. If AI was not part of your methodology, say so explicitly.

\aicardwriting{...} documents AI assistance in writing, editing, translation, figure creation, or other presentation tasks.

\aicardethics{...} covers ethical considerations, bias mitigation steps, data privacy choices, and limitations introduced by AI usage.

Step 4. A Full Working Example

Here is a complete, compilable LaTeX document you can copy into a new file and build immediately.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{ai-usage-card}
 
\title{Predicting Urban Heat Islands with Satellite Data}
\author{Maria Chen \and David Okonkwo}
\date{March 2026}
 
\begin{document}
\maketitle
 
\begin{abstract}
This paper presents a machine learning approach to predicting
urban heat island intensity using multispectral satellite
imagery and meteorological station data from 12 European cities.
\end{abstract}
 
\section{Introduction}
% Your paper content here...
 
\section{Methods}
% Your paper content here...
 
\section{Results}
% Your paper content here...
 
\section{Discussion}
% Your paper content here...
 
\section*{Acknowledgments}
This work was supported by the European Climate Research Fund
(Grant No. 2025-ECR-4471).
 
\appendix
\section{AI Usage Card}
 
\begin{aicard}{Predicting Urban Heat Islands with Satellite Data}
 
\aicardauthors{Maria Chen, Technical University of Munich;
David Okonkwo, University of Lagos}
 
\aicardtools{
  \aitool{GitHub Copilot}{v1.138, OpenAI Codex}{VS Code
    extension}{September 2025--February 2026}
  \aitool{ChatGPT}{GPT-4o, OpenAI}{Web interface}{January 2026}
}
 
\aicardmethodology{
  GitHub Copilot was used during the development of data
  preprocessing pipelines in Python. Specifically, Copilot
  generated initial implementations of functions for reading
  and resampling satellite imagery in Chapter 3. All generated
  code was reviewed by both authors, tested against known
  outputs, and modified where necessary. The model architecture,
  training procedure, and evaluation methodology were designed
  entirely by the authors without AI assistance.
}
 
\aicardwriting{
  ChatGPT (GPT-4o) was used to proofread the final manuscript
  and suggest improvements to sentence structure in Sections 1
  and 5. Approximately 15 suggestions were accepted out of 40
  generated. The related work section, results interpretation,
  and all scientific claims are the authors' own work.
}
 
\aicardethics{
  All satellite data used in this study is publicly available
  and contains no personally identifiable information. No
  research data was uploaded to AI services. GitHub Copilot
  operated locally within the IDE with telemetry disabled.
  The authors acknowledge that Copilot's code suggestions
  may reflect biases present in its training data, and all
  generated code was reviewed for correctness and efficiency.
}
 
\end{aicard}
 
\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{references}
 
\end{document}

Step 5. Placing the Card in Your Paper

You have several options for where to put your AI Usage Card.

As an appendix (recommended). This is the most common placement. Add \appendix before the card section, as shown in the full example above. Most journals and conferences accept supplementary appendices.

\appendix
\section{AI Usage Card}
\begin{aicard}{Your Paper Title}
  % card contents
\end{aicard}

After the acknowledgments. If your venue does not support appendices or you prefer a more visible placement, you can place the card directly after your acknowledgments section.

\section*{Acknowledgments}
We thank our funding agency...
 
\section*{AI Usage Declaration}
\begin{aicard}{Your Paper Title}
  % card contents
\end{aicard}

As a float. If you want the card to appear inline with your text, you can wrap it in a figure environment.

\begin{figure*}[t]
\begin{aicard}{Your Paper Title}
  % card contents
\end{aicard}
\caption{AI Usage Card for this paper.}
\end{figure*}

Working with Conference and Journal Templates

Most LaTeX templates from conferences and journals are compatible with the ai-usage-card package. Load it after the document class and any class-specific packages.

\documentclass{acl}           % or ieee, neurips, etc.
\usepackage{ai-usage-card}

If you encounter a conflict with xcolor options (common with some IEEE templates that load xcolor with specific options), load the package with the noxcolor option.

\usepackage[noxcolor]{ai-usage-card}

For two-column layouts, place the card in a \onecolumn section or use figure* to span both columns.

\onecolumn
\section{AI Usage Card}
\begin{aicard}{Your Paper Title}
  % card contents
\end{aicard}
\twocolumn

Documenting Multiple Tools

When your project involved several AI tools for different tasks, list each one with its own \aitool entry and be specific in the methodology and writing sections about which tool did what.

\aicardtools{
  \aitool{ChatGPT}{GPT-4o, OpenAI}{API}{Oct 2025--Feb 2026}
  \aitool{GitHub Copilot}{v1.138, OpenAI Codex}{VS Code}{Oct 2025--Feb 2026}
  \aitool{Grammarly}{Premium}{Browser extension}{February 2026}
  \aitool{DALL-E 3}{OpenAI}{Web interface}{January 2026}
}
 
\aicardmethodology{
  ChatGPT was used via the API to classify 2,000 survey
  responses into thematic categories. The classification
  prompt and category definitions were developed by the
  authors. A random sample of 200 responses was manually
  classified to validate the AI classifications, achieving
  92\% agreement (Cohen's kappa = 0.87).
 
  GitHub Copilot assisted with writing the R scripts used
  for statistical analysis in Section 4. All scripts were
  reviewed and tested by the first author.
}
 
\aicardwriting{
  Grammarly was used for grammar and style checking across
  the full manuscript. DALL-E 3 generated the conceptual
  diagram in Figure 1, which was then annotated and refined
  by the authors in Adobe Illustrator.
}

Common Issues and Fixes

"File not found" error. Make sure ai-usage-card.sty is in the same directory as your .tex file, or installed in your texmf tree. If you are using Overleaf, upload the file to your project root.

Color option clash. If you see an error like Option clash for package xcolor, your document class or another package is loading xcolor with different options. Use \usepackage[noxcolor]{ai-usage-card} to prevent the package from loading its own xcolor instance.

Card too wide for two-column layout. Use figure* or switch to \onecolumn mode before the card, as described above.

Encoding issues with special characters. Make sure you are using \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} or compiling with XeLaTeX/LuaLaTeX. Tool names and author names with accented characters (like Göttingen) need proper encoding support.

Want to include a PDF instead? If you generated your AI Usage Card at ai-cards.org and downloaded it as a PDF, you can include it directly without using the package at all.

\usepackage{pdfpages}
\appendix
\section{AI Usage Card}
\includepdf[pages=-]{ai-usage-card.pdf}

Alternative to LaTeX

If you prefer not to work with LaTeX packages, you can generate a complete AI Usage Card through the web interface at ai-cards.org. The online generator walks you through the same four sections, produces a formatted PDF, and takes about ten minutes. This is a good option for researchers who are collaborating with co-authors who do not use LaTeX, or for quickly generating a card to attach as a supplementary file.

For more examples of completed AI Usage Cards across different research scenarios, see our examples page. If you want to learn more about what AI Usage Cards are and why they matter, start with What Are AI Usage Cards?.