We read the full gazette text of the UGC academic-integrity regulations looking for the word “artificial”. It appears zero times. So do “generative” and “AI tool”. The 2018 regulations were notified five years before any Indian scholar had a reason to ask this question, and they have not been amended to answer it.
That does not leave you without rules. It means the rules that apply to you are older and more general, and they are in two places: the definition of plagiarism in those regulations, and the declaration your own ordinance already makes you sign. This guide sets out the reference format for a generative AI tool, a declaration you can adapt, and the exact clauses that decide the question in the absence of an AI-specific one.
This is the formatting and declaration half of the question. Whether you may use AI at all, what detectors actually prove and what you should never paste into an online tool are covered in our guide to what the Indian integrity rules actually require of AI use; read that one first if permission is still open in your department.
What the UGC regulations actually say, and why it settles more than it looks
The UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 define the offence in one sentence: “‘Plagiarism’ means the practice of taking someone else’s work or idea and passing them as one’s own.”
Read that against a generative model and two things follow. Text a model produced is not “someone else’s work” in the sense the definition contemplates, so a similarity check will not usually catch it and the definition does not obviously reach it. But the second half — “passing them as one’s own” — is precisely what you do if you submit generated prose under a declaration that the writing is yours. The regulation does not need to name the tool to bite.
The undertaking itself is mandated by clause 6 of the same regulations: “Every student submitting a thesis, dissertation, or any other such documents to the HEI shall submit an undertaking indicating that the document has been prepared by him or her and that the document is his/her original work and free of any plagiarism”, and that undertaking “shall include the fact that the document has been duly checked through a Plagiarism detection tool approved by the HEI”. Clause 6 also requires the supervisor to certify that the work is plagiarism free.
So the national instrument gives you a declaration you must sign and a definition that turns on whether you passed someone else’s work off as yours. Neither mentions AI. Both apply to it.
The clause in your own ordinance that already covers this
University certificates are usually more precise than the UGC text, and the precision is in a clause most scholars skim. Anna University’s specimen Bonafide Certificate has the scholar declare that “the thesis and publications are my own work, except where specifically acknowledged, and has not been copied from other sources or been previously submitted for award or assessment.”
Those four words are the whole mechanism. The certificate does not prohibit assistance; it requires that assistance be specifically acknowledged. An acknowledged AI contribution is consistent with the certificate. An unacknowledged one is not, and the problem then is not the tool, it is a false declaration — a considerably worse position than the use it conceals.
Delhi University’s Ordinance VI runs the same logic through more signatures: the thesis carries an undertaking from the scholar and a certificate from the research supervisor attesting to originality and to non-submission elsewhere, and the Head of the Department countersigns both. Three people are now attesting to something you know and they do not. The exact wording of both documents, read from the ordinances themselves, is in our guide to thesis format templates and the certificate wording two Indian ordinances specify.
How to reference a generative AI tool
APA’s own style site does not serve readable pages to automated tools, so this section is built on the published supplement of the Werkgroep APA, “De APA-richtlijnen uitgelegd: Generatieve AI”, version 2.0, which states in its introduction that the APA Style Experts set out provisional guidance in three blog posts on 9 September 2025 and that the supplement is built on it. The element structure below is taken from that document. Before you submit, check whether your department has issued its own form, because a departmental instruction overrides any general guide.
There are two cases, and choosing between them is the part scholars get wrong.
Case 1: you used the tool, and the specific conversation does not matter
Five elements: developer, year, name of the tool in italics, a bracketed description, and the URL with no access date.
Developer. (year). Name of the AI tool [Generative AI]. https://…
OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT [Generative AI]. https://chatgpt.com/
Google. (2026). Gemini [Generative AI]. https://gemini.google.com/
Anthropic. (2026). Claude [Generative AI]. https://claude.ai/
Use the year the tool itself displays; where none is shown, the supplement’s instruction is to use the current year.
Case 2: a specific conversation is part of your evidence
Six elements: developer, full date of the chat, title of the chat in italics, a bracketed description naming it as a chat, the tool name, and the link to the conversation.
Developer. (year, day month). Title of the chat [Generative AI chat]. Name of the tool. https://…
OpenAI. (2026, 10 April). Framing research questions on quality management in higher education [Generative AI chat]. ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com/c/…
The title is either the one the tool assigned or one you give the conversation yourself. No access date is used in either case.
Two practical warnings. A shared chat link can be revoked or expire, so keep an exported copy of any conversation you cite, in the same folder as your data. And a generated citation is not a citation: models produce plausible references to papers that do not exist, which is why the audit in our guide to citing in APA style for an Indian university thesis asks you to resolve every reference against the actual source.
When a reference is not the right instrument
A reference-list entry says you used the tool as a source. Much AI use in a thesis is not that. If a model checked your spelling, suggested a clearer phrasing of a sentence you wrote, or helped you tidy a table, a reference entry misdescribes what happened, and a sentence in the acknowledgements or a declaration does the job better.
The rough test is what the tool contributed. If it contributed content — an idea, a framing, an analysis, a passage — reference it. If it contributed editing — language, formatting, mechanics — declare it. If your department requires a declaration for both, follow your department.
A declaration of AI use you can adapt
Where no form is prescribed, this is the shape that answers what an examiner will ask: which tool, which version if shown, for which tasks, and what you did to verify the result. Keep it short and keep it true.
Declaration regarding the use of generative artificial intelligence
I declare that generative artificial intelligence tools were used in the preparation of this [thesis / dissertation] as set out below, and that all such use is acknowledged here.
[Tool name, developer, version if displayed] was used for [list the tasks: for example, language editing of Chapters 3 and 4; suggesting alternative phrasings for the abstract; formatting reference-list entries].
No part of the research design, data collection, analysis, findings, interpretation or conclusions of this work was generated by an artificial intelligence tool. All sources cited were located, read and verified by me against the original publications. All AI-assisted text was reviewed and edited by me and I take full responsibility for its accuracy and for the content of this [thesis / dissertation].
[Signature] · [Name] · [Registration number] · [Date]
Two notes on using it. Do not sign the third paragraph if it is not true — strike out whatever does not apply and say what did happen instead. And place the declaration wherever your ordinance puts the scholar’s undertaking, usually immediately after the declaration page, so that the two are read together.
What to keep, and for how long
The practical protection in a dispute is not a detector score, it is a paper trail. Keep, in a dated folder alongside your drafts: exported copies of any conversation you cite, your reading notes, your data files, and successive versions of each chapter. A scholar who can show a chapter developing from notes through drafts is in a strong position whatever a detector says; a scholar with only a finished document is not.
Keep it until the degree is awarded and the thesis is deposited, which for an Indian scholar means at least until the institution has sent the soft copy to INFLIBNET — a step clause 6 of the 2018 regulations requires within a month of the award.
Five mistakes that turn an honest use into a problem
- Declaring nothing because there is no rule. The absence of an AI clause is not permission to leave the certificate’s “except where specifically acknowledged” unsatisfied.
- Declaring in the acknowledgements only. The acknowledgements thank people. If your ordinance requires an undertaking, the declaration belongs with the undertaking.
- Citing a chat you can no longer open. Shared links expire. Export the conversation the day you cite it.
- Submitting a generated reference unchecked. Models fabricate plausible citations. Every reference must resolve to a source you opened. This is the single most common way AI use becomes a finding of misconduct.
- Writing a declaration broader than the truth. “AI was used for language editing only” is a false declaration if it also drafted a section. Describe what happened.
Keeping the work yours while the document grows
Everything above is easier when the writing you are declaring is genuinely your own argument, expressed with help. Tesify is built for that side of the line: it develops chapters from your framework, your notes and your data, keeps methodology and results consistent as the document grows, and leaves the findings, the gap and the sources to you. You verify every citation against the actual source, you remain the author, and you sign the undertaking.
Frequently asked questions
Do the UGC regulations say anything about AI?
No. The full gazette text of the UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 contains no reference to artificial intelligence, generative tools or machine-generated text. It defines plagiarism as taking someone else’s work or idea and passing it off as one’s own.
Does a similarity check detect AI-generated text?
A similarity check compares your text against a corpus, so it detects matching, not origin. Whether your institution also runs a separate AI-detection tool is a question for your department, and detectors produce false positives on heavily edited and non-native academic prose.
Do I have to declare AI use if my university has no policy?
Read your certificate wording before deciding. Many Indian certificates require that the work be your own “except where specifically acknowledged”, which makes acknowledgement the condition on which the declaration is true. Where the ordinance is genuinely silent, ask your guide in writing.
How do I reference ChatGPT in the reference list?
As five elements: developer, year, tool name in italics, the bracketed description, and the URL with no access date. For example: OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT [Generative AI]. https://chatgpt.com/
How do I reference one specific conversation?
With six elements: developer, the full date of the chat, the title of the chat in italics, a bracketed description naming it as a chat, the tool name, and the link. Export the conversation as well, because shared links can expire.
Should the reference go in the reference list or in a footnote?
In the reference list, wherever your style puts sources. If your thesis uses footnotes throughout, the AI reference follows the same convention as every other source in that thesis.
What if I only used AI for grammar and language?
That is editing rather than content, and a declaration or an acknowledgements sentence usually fits better than a reference-list entry. Name the tool and the task, and say that the argument and the sources are yours.
Can I use AI to generate my literature review?
Generated review prose is exactly what your certificate is asking about, and generated citations frequently do not resolve to real papers. Use the tool to help you express what you have read, and verify every reference against the original.
Where does the AI declaration go in the thesis?
With the scholar’s undertaking, in the position your ordinance specifies for it, so that the examiner reads the undertaking and the disclosure together rather than finding the disclosure buried later.
Is it safer to say nothing?
No. An inaccurate declaration is a worse problem than the use it conceals, and it is the part that is provable from the document itself.
Can I paste my unpublished results into an AI tool to get help writing them up?
Consider what is in the material first. Unpublished results, participant data or anything covered by a confidentiality agreement or your ethics approval should not go into a service whose data handling you have not checked. This is a separate issue from integrity and can carry separate consequences.
My similarity report is high and I used AI. Are the two related?
Not necessarily; they are different measurements. The thresholds and what each level means are in the UGC plagiarism limit for a PhD thesis, and the recovery route is in our guide to reducing similarity before submission.