Kudos has announced the launch of Phase II of Taming the Crocodile, an industry initiative aimed at ensuring scholarly and scientific content remains discoverable as artificial intelligence increasingly mediates information access. EBSCOHost has joined as a headline sponsor, alongside Wiley, Emerald Publishing, Springer Nature, and Silverchair. Continuing sponsors from Phase I include the American Physical Society, Clarivate, Elsevier, IEEE, Oxford University Press, Taylor & Francis, and Wolters Kluwer.
Phase II will move beyond initial research and recommendations to focus on practical solutions. Planned activities include developing a draft code of practice for metadata and AI discoverability, conducting a cross‑sector benchmark of publishers’ responses to AI‑mediated discovery, and undertaking an observational study of how researchers find and evaluate information when AI is involved.
Sam Brooks, Executive Vice President at EBSCO Information Services, stated that while AI is changing the research journey, the need for trusted and authoritative information remains constant. He emphasized that the industry has an opportunity to shape how high‑quality scholarly content is surfaced in AI environments by working together on practical standards and best practices.
Charlie Rapple, co‑founder of Kudos and project lead, noted that ensuring content visibility in AI systems is a priority for the sector. She explained that provenance, attribution, and metrics depend on authoritative content being surfaced in the first place. Rapple added that Phase II would build on insights from Phase I and her experience with the KBART initiative, which later became a NISO code of practice, to help publishers and platforms optimize AI discoverability.
New sponsors will gain immediate access to the Phase I report, which includes findings from surveys of 11,500 researchers and 200 librarians, as well as an environmental scan of more than 300 sources. The report outlines actions for marketing, editorial, customer service, account management, and technology teams, along with a roadmap for long‑term strategic response. A comprehensive Phase II report, including an executive summary, will be delivered at the end of 2026.
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