Conferences and preprint servers account for 53% of AI researchers’ top 2020s works with a classified venue

Where were the most-cited works of the people shaping AI published? Across 12,386 dated works that we can classify into a conference, a journal or a preprint server (from 14,973 dated works of 14,977 unique works by 3,593 researchers, alongside 756 books and book-series chapters and 1,831 works with no recorded venue), we estimate that journals account for 64% (7,871), conferences for 27% (3,399), and preprint servers for 9% (1,116). Over the 6 decades with at least 100 classified works, the journal share fell from 94% in the 1970s to 47% in the 2020s, and conferences (31%) and preprint servers (22%) together reached 53% (1,202 of 2,269). In the 2020s, preprint servers lead works with a company and no university author at 40%, and journals lead works with a university and no company author at 58%.

Key findings

• Across the 6 decades from the 1970s to the 2020s, journals fell from 94% (272 of 290 classified works) to 47% (1,067 of 2,269), conferences rose from 6% (18) to a peak of 33% in the 2010s and stood at 31% (698) in the 2020s, and preprint servers rose from 0% (0) to 22% (504).
• Across all 11,749 classified works whose authors we can match to a publication-year employer, works with a university and no company author (8,939) are 69% journals, 25% conferences and 6% preprints; joint university–company works (1,300) are 46% journals, 37% conferences and 17% preprints; and works with a company and no university author (1,013) are 41% journals, 38% conferences and 21% preprints.
• Within the 2020s, works with a company and no university author (283) are 40% preprints (114), 34% conferences (95) and 26% journals (74), and works with a university and no company author (1,311) are 58% journals (757), 29% conferences (381) and 13% preprints (173).
• arXiv leads all individual publication venues across all years with 1,068 works (96% of all 1,116 preprints). Lecture Notes in Computer Science (529) and CVPR (503) lead conference venues, and IEEE TPAMI (334) and Artificial Intelligence (221) lead journals.

How the venue mix changed over the decades

In the 1970s, journals accounted for 94% of classified works (272 of 290), conferences for 6% (18), and preprint servers for 0% (0). The conference share rose in each decade to 33% in the 2010s (1,564 of 4,748 classified works), and the journal share fell to 55% (2,599 of 4,748) in the 2010s and fell to 47% (1,067 of 2,269) in the 2020s.

Three lines show the share of classified top works in conferences, journals and preprint servers across 6 decades from the 1970s to the 2020s. Journals fell from 94% to 47%, conferences rose from 6% to a peak of 33% in the 2010s and stood at 31% in the 2020s, and preprint servers rose from 0% to 22%.

Source: OpenAlex (CC0), most-cited works as of 21 October 2026; People of Superintelligence career records as of 22 October 2026. Decades with at least 100 works classified as a conference, journal or preprint. Each work ID counts once.

Data table

Decade	Conferences	Journals	Preprint servers	Classified works	Conference share	Journal share	Preprint share	Books and book series	Unrecorded or repository
1970s	18	272	0	290	6%	94%	0%	25	63
1980s	54	533	0	587	9%	91%	0%	81	129
1990s	190	1,122	10	1,322	14%	85%	1%	150	333
2000s	869	2,161	17	3,047	29%	71%	1%	237	579
2010s	1,564	2,599	585	4,748	33%	55%	12%	196	523
2020s	698	1,067	504	2,269	31%	47%	22%	61	175

Preprint servers remained at or below 1% through the 2000s, then rose to 12% (585 of 4,748) in the 2010s and rose to 22% (504 of 2,269) in the 2020s. Across all recorded decades, the 2020s are the first in which conferences and preprint servers combined (53%, 1,202 works) outnumber journals (47%, 1,067 works).

How company and university authors differ

Matching each work to the employers where its tracked authors held non-education roles in the publication year links 11,749 of the 12,386 classified works (95%) to at least one organization. Across all years, works with at least one university author (10,239) are 66% journals (6,763), 27% conferences (2,739) and 7% preprints (737), and works with at least one company author (2,313) are 44% journals (1,012), 38% conferences (870) and 19% preprints (431). Across works written with a university and no company author (8,939), jointly across a university and a company (1,300), and with a company and no university author (1,013), the journal share is lower on works with a company and no university author (41%) than on joint works (46%) and works with a university and no company author (69%), and the preprint share is higher on works with a company and no university author (21%) than on joint works (17%) and works with a university and no company author (6%).

Horizontal 100% stacked bars compare the share of conferences, preprint servers and journals across works with a company and no university author, joint university-company works, works with a university and no company author, and institute-only works in the 2020s and across all years.

Source: OpenAlex (CC0), most-cited works as of 21 October 2026; People of Superintelligence career records as of 22 October 2026. Non-education roles covering the publication year. The table also lists the 20 organizations with the most classified works.

Data table

Author group or organization	Classified works	Conferences	Preprint servers	Journals	Conference share	Preprint share	Journal share
Company, no university, 2020s	283	95	114	74	34%	40%	26%
Joint uni.–company, 2020s	381	132	97	152	35%	25%	40%
University, no company, 2020s	1,311	381	173	757	29%	13%	58%
Company, no university, all years	1,013	388	210	415	38%	21%	41%
Joint university–company, all years	1,300	482	221	597	37%	17%	46%
University, no company, all years	8,939	2,257	516	6,166	25%	6%	69%
Institute or lab only, all years	497	131	32	334	26%	6%	67%
All company works (including joint)	2,313	870	431	1,012	38%	19%	44%
All university works (including joint)	10,239	2,739	737	6,763	27%	7%	66%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	618	144	48	426	23%	8%	69%
Stanford University	524	155	71	298	30%	14%	57%
Google	466	157	180	129	34%	39%	28%
Carnegie Mellon University	450	176	29	245	39%	6%	54%
Microsoft	389	199	48	142	51%	12%	37%
University of California, Berkeley	352	132	54	166	38%	15%	47%
University of Oxford	278	58	55	165	21%	20%	59%
CNRS	262	61	11	190	23%	4%	73%
Harvard University	239	21	9	209	9%	4%	87%
Max Planck Society	237	60	23	154	25%	10%	65%
University of Washington	215	115	25	75	53%	12%	35%
IBM	203	80	9	114	39%	4%	56%
ETH Zurich	199	63	20	116	32%	10%	58%
University of Cambridge	174	33	17	124	19%	10%	71%
Inria	167	55	17	95	33%	10%	57%
University of Toronto	165	36	34	95	22%	21%	58%
Chinese Academy of Sciences	160	82	11	67	51%	7%	42%
University of Edinburgh	154	46	7	101	30%	5%	66%
New York University	147	27	18	102	18%	12%	69%
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	139	40	3	96	29%	2%	69%

In the 2020s, preprint servers account for 40% of works with a company and no university author (114 of 283), higher than the 13% preprint share on works with a university and no company author (173 of 1,311), and journals account for 58% of works with a university and no company author (757 of 1,311) and 26% of works with a company and no university author (74 of 283). Works from research institutes, nonprofits and government labs with no university or company co-author (497 across all years) are 67% journals (334), 26% conferences (131) and 6% preprints (32).

Among the 11 companies with at least 25 classified works, Anthropic has the highest preprint share at 80% (24 of 30), Meta leads on conference share at 57% (74 of 129), and AT&T leads on journal share at 76% (81 of 107). At Google, the company with the most classified works overall (466), the mix is 39% preprints (180), 34% conferences (157) and 28% journals (129). Among the 137 universities with at least 25 classified works, Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads in volume (618 works: 69% journals, 23% conferences, 8% preprints), TU Wien has the highest journal share at 96.4% (27 of 28), and National Taiwan University has the highest conference share at 67% (31 of 46).

Leading conferences, journals and preprint servers

Across all 12,386 classified works, 2,325 distinct canonical venues appear. arXiv leads all venues with 1,068 works (9% of all classified works, and 96% of all 1,116 preprints), including 478 in the 2020s.

Horizontal bars rank the 15 publication venues with the most works across all years, colored by whether the venue is a conference, journal or preprint server.

Source: OpenAlex (CC0), most-cited works as of 21 October 2026; People of Superintelligence career records as of 22 October 2026. Common spelling and acronym variants of the same conference or preprint server are grouped.

Data table

Venue	Kind	Works	Works in the 2020s	Works with known employer	Company works	Company share	University works	University share
arXiv	Preprint server	1,068	478	939	419	45%	701	75%
Lecture Notes in Computer Science	Conference	529	57	517	100	19%	440	85%
CVPR	Conference	503	116	496	177	36%	431	87%
IEEE TPAMI	Journal	334	33	329	62	19%	296	90%
Artificial Intelligence	Journal	221	3	216	29	13%	186	86%
Nature	Journal	186	61	178	53	30%	147	83%
ICCV	Conference	179	45	176	57	32%	155	88%
ACL	Conference	172	62	168	59	35%	143	85%
Science	Journal	141	22	138	20	14%	124	90%
ICRA	Conference	121	31	116	16	14%	108	93%
Communications of the ACM	Journal	120	9	113	32	28%	91	81%
EMNLP	Conference	113	48	111	32	29%	96	86%
Physical Review Letters	Journal	102	4	99	10	10%	92	93%
AAAI	Conference	99	27	98	24	24%	85	87%
IEEE Transactions on Image Processing	Journal	96	6	95	18	19%	84	88%
International Journal of Computer Vision	Journal	84	8	84	21	25%	75	89%
Machine Learning	Journal	82	2	81	12	15%	71	88%
Pattern Recognition	Journal	81	3	79	10	13%	71	90%
ICASSP	Conference	74	8	71	31	44%	47	66%
NeurIPS	Conference	74	57	55	16	29%	39	71%
IEEE Transactions on Information Theory	Journal	73	1	70	7	10%	64	91%
International Journal of Robotics Research	Journal	71	5	71	12	17%	68	96%
ACM Computing Surveys	Journal	66	23	65	11	17%	61	94%
Proceedings of the IEEE	Journal	65	6	63	15	24%	54	86%
KDD	Conference	63	5	61	17	28%	55	90%
PNAS	Journal	58	5	54	6	11%	50	93%
IROS	Conference	57	19	54	5	9%	49	91%
ACM Transactions on Graphics	Journal	55	8	55	23	42%	46	84%
Journal of the ACM	Journal	53	1	49	12	24%	44	90%
Nature Communications	Journal	52	24	49	6	12%	44	90%

Among conference venues, Lecture Notes in Computer Science leads with 529 works, followed by CVPR with 503 and ICCV with 179. Among journals, IEEE TPAMI leads with 334 works (4th among all venues), ahead of Artificial Intelligence with 221. Across the 15 leading venues in the chart, company authors appear on the largest share of employer-matched works at arXiv (45%, 419 of 939) and the smallest share at Physical Review Letters (10%, 10 of 99).