Yes, after a conversation with your supervisor or supervisory committee, and with each use documented. York's guidance for graduate students on generative AI is published by Teaching & Learning and linked from the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) regulations. It asks you to talk to your supervisor and/or committee before using GenAI in thesis or dissertation research, drafting, creation, or editing, to cite each use, and to be ready to declare it at your defense. If you and your supervisor are unsure, your graduate program director is the next step.
If your AI statement clearly doesn't cover what you describe elsewhere in your thesis, Esmond points it out.
The guidance puts the conversation first: before GenAI touches your thesis or dissertation research, drafting, creation, or editing, you talk to your supervisor and/or supervisory committee. It explains why: norms and practices around AI differ between disciplines and fields and are changing quickly. If neither of you is sure about a proposed use, you consult your graduate program director.
Documentation follows: “Be sure to document and cite the use of AI appropriately, as you would any other resource, analytical approach, or methodological tool.” The guidance notes that citation styles now include instructions for AI, and it asks you to be ready to declare each use at your thesis defense or in other discussions of your work, so that your audience can tell your own thinking from what came out of AI.
A hypothetical example of a commentYour acknowledgments credit a GenAI tool with tidying the reference list, but your research log shows it also drafted the first version of three survey questions in chapter 3. Is that second use cited anywhere?
A first comment on one part of your own draft, right away and without an account.
Get a free previewThe FGS regulations, under General Information, point graduate students to that page and state its purpose: “These guidelines are intended to reflect the principles of transparency, AI literacy, choice, academic integrity, and alignment with York University’s core values.” FGS also encourages the graduate community to review the guidelines regularly, since GenAI keeps changing.
So the guidance is the reference FGS uses, but it reads as guidance, and it leaves room for disciplines to differ. That is why the conversation with your supervisor carries the weight: it is where the general text becomes a rule for your thesis.
The same FGS page has a firmer rule for a different kind of help. If you hire a professional editor for a thesis, dissertation, or major research paper or project, “written permission from their supervisor must be obtained, in keeping with recommendations by the Editors’ Association of Canada.” FGS also limits what the editor does: “The guidelines stipulate that editing must not affect the content or structure of the work.”
FGS does not say whether this editor rule applies to AI tools, and we don't extend it. It does show how York thinks about outside help on a thesis: the supervisor knows about it in advance, and the content stays yours. If a tool would change wording across whole chapters, that is worth raising in your conversation with your supervisor.
| Moment | What York's guidance says | What to keep |
|---|---|---|
| Before a use | Talk to your supervisor and/or committee; consult the graduate program director if unsure | A short note or email of what was agreed |
| While you work | Supervisors are asked to encourage students to document each use in research, drafting, and revisions | A dated log of tool, task, and what you kept |
| Ethics forms | Reflect on AI risks and how they may affect your participants before the research starts | The section of your ethics application that covers AI |
| In the thesis | Cite each use as you would any other resource or method | Citations in your field's style |
| At the defense | Be ready to declare and acknowledge each use | An account in your own words of every AI-assisted part |
| Articles from the thesis | Check the AI policy of the venue | The venue's policy, saved with your submission |
The guidance lists risks that include inaccurate results, data sovereignty, implicit bias, data protection, privacy, and data contamination. It asks you to think about them when you prepare your ethics forms, before the research begins, and to consider how they could affect your participants. For a thesis with human participants, this means deciding early which data may go into a tool at all, and saying so in the ethics application. York's academic integrity page for students adds a general warning: putting personal, sensitive, unpublished, or third-party material into an AI tool can raise privacy or confidentiality concerns.
Graduate courses at York set their own AI rules in the syllabus. The sample statement that York's Academic Integrity office offers for graduate courses puts it this way: “Graduate students should understand the ethical implications of using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and are encouraged to seek clarification from your instructors/advisor/thesis or dissertation supervisor about the potential use of these tools in graduate work.” A course that permits AI for an assignment does not settle what is acceptable in your thesis, and the reverse is also true.
This example is made up. A master's student in kinesiology tells her supervisor she will use a GenAI tool to format her reference list, and her supervisor agrees. Later she asks the same tool for first drafts of three survey questions, adapts them, and uses them in her study. Her acknowledgments mention only the reference list. The survey use is part of her method, so under York's guidance it should have come up with her supervisor before she used it, appear in her log, and be cited in chapter 3, where her committee will look for it at the defense.
Esmond evaluates every assignment before you submit. It never writes it.
Esmond is an AI tool that doesn't write for you. If your course doesn't allow any AI tools, don't use Esmond for that work. If you're unsure, ask your instructor or advisor.
Esmond evaluates the content of a thesis draft from within your field and points out factual errors, inconsistencies, and blind spots. You can read how Esmond works, open a sample report, and check whether you can use Esmond. York asks you to talk to your supervisor and/or committee before using GenAI on your thesis, so raise a review by Esmond in that conversation, before you upload. If they agree, document and cite it like any other tool, and be ready to describe at your defense what Esmond pointed out and what you did with it. A thesis draft is unpublished work, which York's academic integrity page names among the material that can raise privacy concerns, so read the Privacy Notice first. York University has not reviewed or approved Esmond.
No. York's graduate guidance asks you to talk to your supervisor and/or supervisory committee before using generative AI in your thesis or dissertation, and to document and cite each use.
Yes. The guidance asks you to cite each use like any other resource or method, and to be prepared to declare and acknowledge each use at your defense.
The guidance says to consult your graduate program director when you and your supervisor are unsure about a proposed use of AI.
Yes. FGS requires written permission from your supervisor, and the editing must not affect the content or structure of the work.
Read on November 9, 2026.
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