How to Cite ChatGPT and AI Tools in APA

APA published its official guidance on how to cite AI tools like ChatGPT in April 2023 on the APA Style blog. The format treats large language models as software: the company that publishes the tool serves as the author, the model name and version go in the title field, and a bracketed descriptor identifies the tool type. Searchers who find vague blog posts telling them to cite “OpenAI, n.d.” or to skip the reference altogether are working from outdated or incorrect advice. APA's position is clear, and this post walks through every field in the correct order.

APA’s Official Guidance on Citing AI Tools

The APA Style blog post by Timothy McAdoo, published April 7, 2023, is the authoritative source for how to cite AI tools in APA format. The Publication Manual of APA, 7th edition, predates the widespread adoption of generative AI, so the blog guidance fills a gap the printed manual does not yet cover. APA treats ChatGPT and similar tools as software with a unique authorship problem: there is no human author, but there is a responsible organization.

What Counts as an AI Tool for APA Purposes?

For APA citation purposes, an AI tool is any software that generates text, images, code, or other content in response to a user prompt. ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and similar large language models all fall into this category. AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot also qualify when you draw on their outputs substantively in academic writing.

Standard search engines, grammar checkers that only flag errors without generating text, and spell checkers do not require citation. The threshold is whether the AI generated content that shaped your work.

Why AI Citations Differ From Website Citations

Website citations work because the page is static and retrievable: a reader can visit the URL and see the same content you cited. AI tool outputs fail that test entirely. A reader who visits chat.openai.com and types your exact prompt will receive a different response each time. APA's guidance accounts for this non-retrievability by requiring you to describe the prompt in your text, not just provide a URL. The reference entry alone does not give a reader enough information to evaluate what the AI actually produced.

The APA Reference Format for ChatGPT

The APA reference entry for ChatGPT has six components: author, date, title, type descriptor, publisher, and URL. APA's official example shows the entry on two lines using hanging indent format, the same layout as any other reference-list entry. Below is the complete template and a filled example.

Formatted as a reference-list entry with hanging indent, the ChatGPT citation looks like this:

Author Field: The Company, Not the Model Name

APA treats AI tools as software produced by a corporate author. ChatGPT is published by OpenAI, so OpenAI is the author. The model name does not appear in the author field: it belongs in the title. This mirrors how APA handles other software citations, where the developer or publisher holds the author role.

One common error is listing “ChatGPT” or “GPT-4” as the author. That places the model name in the wrong field and produces an in-text citation of (ChatGPT, 2024), which does not match APA format. The correct in-text form is (OpenAI, 2024).

Title Field: Model Name and Version

The title of the work is the model name, italicized, followed by the version in parentheses inside the italic span. APA’s example uses “May 2023 version” because at the time of the guidance post, ChatGPT’s interface labeled versions by month rather than a numbered release. If the interface shows a specific version number (such as GPT-4o or GPT-4 Turbo), use that instead.

If you cannot determine the specific version from the interface, describe what you can observe: “ChatGPT (2024 version)” is acceptable when a more granular label is unavailable. The goal is to help a reader understand which iteration of the model you used.

Type Descriptor in Square Brackets

APA uses square-bracket descriptors to identify source types that do not fit standard categories. For large language models, the descriptor is [Large language model]. This appears after the title on the same line, before the period that closes the title-descriptor unit.

APA capitalizes “Large language model” in sentence case, matching the format used for other descriptors such as [Photograph] or [Podcast episode]. Do not write [AI chatbot] or [AI tool]; use [Large language model] for ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and comparable systems.

Publisher and URL Fields

APA guidelines allow omitting the publisher name when it matches the author, to avoid redundancy. In the official ChatGPT example, APA includes OpenAI as both author and publisher, treating this as a case where the branding of the work (ChatGPT) differs enough from the publisher (OpenAI) that repeating the publisher helps orient the reader. Follow the APA example and include the company name in the publisher field.

The URL points to the interface where the tool is accessed. For ChatGPT, that is https://chat.openai.com. APA does not require a retrieval date for AI tools, though noting the access date in your text (when you describe the prompt) adds useful context.

APA In-Text Citation for AI Tools

APA in-text citations for AI tools follow the standard author-date format. Use the company name as the author and the year you used the tool as the date. The in-text citation connects to the full reference-list entry by matching on the author name.

Parenthetical Citation Format

Place the author and year in parentheses at the end of the relevant sentence, before the closing period:

If you cite two different AI tools in the same paper, each gets its own author-date pair. A sentence drawing on both ChatGPT and Gemini would read: (Google, 2024; OpenAI, 2024), listed alphabetically as APA requires for multiple parenthetical citations.

Narrative Citation Format

Narrative citations place the author in the sentence and the year in parentheses immediately after:

APA also recommends adding descriptive language about the AI output in the sentence itself, since the in-text citation alone does not tell the reader what the tool produced. “When prompted to summarize the debate, OpenAI (2024) returned a response that grouped arguments into two camps” gives the reader more useful context than a bare parenthetical.

How to Cite Other AI Tools in APA

The ChatGPT template is the model for all large language model citations. Apply the same six-field structure to any AI tool by substituting the correct company, model name, and URL.

Gemini, Copilot, Claude, and Others

The table below shows correctly-formatted reference entries for four widely-used AI tools, following the APA template exactly:

Full reference-list entries for each tool follow the same structure. For Google Gemini, the entry reads:

And for Anthropic Claude:

AI Image Generators and Multimodal Tools

For AI image generators such as DALL-E, Midjourney, or Adobe Firefly, the same author-date-title structure applies, but the type descriptor changes. APA has not yet published specific descriptors for image generators. Following the general software citation principle, use a descriptor that accurately describes the tool type, such as [AI image generator]. The APA Style blog notes that researchers should use the format that best represents the tool when a specific APA ruling is not yet available.

For DALL-E (published by OpenAI), a reference entry would use OpenAI as the author, the model name and version as the title, and [AI image generator] as the descriptor. Check the APA Style blog for updates as APA refines guidance for these tool types.

Handling Prompts and AI Outputs in Your Paper

The reference entry tells readers what tool you used. Your body text needs to tell them what you asked and what the tool produced. APA calls this the non-retrievability problem: because another reader cannot reproduce your exact conversation, the citation alone is insufficient.

Describing Prompts in the Text

APA guidance recommends describing your prompt in the body of your paper when you draw on AI-generated content. A brief description integrates naturally into the text: “When asked to identify common themes in post-2010 urban planning literature, ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2024) produced a response organized around three categories: sustainability, infrastructure, and governance.”

This description does several things at once. It attributes the content, identifies the tool and date, signals to the reader that the source is AI-generated, and gives enough context to evaluate the output without reproducing the entire conversation.

Using an Appendix for Longer Outputs

When an AI output is long enough to be analytically significant and you want to reproduce it in full, APA recommends placing it in an appendix rather than block-quoting it in the body. This keeps the main text clean while preserving the full record. Label the appendix (Appendix A, Appendix B, etc.) and reference it in your text: “The complete AI-generated response is reproduced in Appendix A.”

Do not treat AI-generated text as a direct quotable source the way you would quote a published paper. APA’s guidance explicitly advises against reproducing AI outputs as authoritative quotations, because the outputs are neither verifiable nor retrievable. When you need to show the output, the appendix route acknowledges the limitation while preserving transparency.

Once you have the format clear, the citations hub at Classeva generates reference entries for APA 7th edition across multiple source types, including AI tools. You can also check your existing references for formatting consistency before submission.

For other edge cases in APA referencing, the sibling posts in this cluster cover sources without dates at how to cite a source with no date in APA, government reports at how to cite a government report in APA, and sources without named authors at how to cite a source with no author in APA. The Batch-1 post on how to generate an APA reference covers the general structure of APA entries before you tackle edge cases.

If you want to work through your citations with an AI tutor that understands APA format, referencing conventions, and your discipline-specific requirements:

The university resources hub also includes tools for grade calculations, subject calculators, and the full citations suite covering APA, MLA, Harvard, and other styles.

Key Takeaways

1. To cite ChatGPT in APA 7th edition, use OpenAI as the author, the model name and version in italics as the title, [Large language model] as the type descriptor, OpenAI as the publisher, and https://chat.openai.com as the URL. In-text format: (OpenAI, 2024).
2. APA’s official guidance, published by Timothy McAdoo in 2023, treats AI tools like software: the company holds the author role, and the model name belongs in the title field, not the author field.
3. Because AI responses are not retrievable, the reference entry alone is insufficient. APA requires describing the prompt and the nature of the output in the body text so readers can evaluate the source.
4. The same six-field template applies to Gemini (author: Google), Claude (author: Anthropic), and Microsoft Copilot (author: Microsoft). The descriptor [Large language model] applies to all of them.
5. For longer AI outputs you want to reproduce in full, APA recommends an appendix rather than a block quote. Reference the appendix in your text and note it in the reference entry discussion.
6. Check your institution’s AI use policy before submitting. Some programs prohibit AI-assisted writing entirely, and citing the tool correctly does not override those rules.
7. The citations hub generates APA entries for AI tools, books, journals, and other sources in the correct 7th-edition format.