aaai

name	aaai
description	Writing and formatting guidance for AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence papers. Use when drafting, revising, or formatting papers for AAAI 2026 submission or camera-ready. Covers aaai2026 LaTeX class, anonymous submission mode, page limits, reference formatting with natbib, figure/table placement, Times font requirements, and CCF-A category requirements.

AAAI 2026 Conference Writing Skill

CCF-A | AI | Publisher: AAAI Conference: https://aaai.org/conference/aaai/aaai-26 Template: ccf-latex-templates/AAAI/aaai2026_template.tex

Document Setup

Preamble Structure

\documentclass[letterpaper]{article}

% Switch between modes:
% Uncomment for anonymous submission:
% \def\aaaianonymous{true}

% Conditional package loading:
\ifdefined\aaaianonymous
    \usepackage[submission]{aaai2026}
\else
    \usepackage{aaai2026}
\fi

% REQUIRED fonts (DO NOT CHANGE):
\usepackage{times}
\usepackage{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}
\usepackage[hyphens]{url}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\urlstyle{rm}
\def\UrlFont{\rm}

% REQUIRED (no options):
\usepackage{natbib}
\usepackage{caption}
\frenchspacing
\setlength{\pdfpagewidth}{8.5in}
\setlength{\pdfpageheight}{11in}

% Required pdfinfo:
\pdfinfo{
/TemplateVersion (2026.1)
}

Required Packages

Always include these packages in the exact order shown. The template enforces Times font via times, helvet, and courier packages — this is mandatory and cannot be changed.

Submission vs Camera-Ready

Mode	Declaration	Effect
Anonymous Submission	\def\aaaianonymous{true}	Hides author info, no copyright notice
Camera-Ready	Comment out \def\aaaianonymous	Shows authors, includes copyright

Page Limits

• Main content: 7 pages
• References: 1 page (separate)
• Total submission: 8 pages maximum
• Camera-ready: Follow conference-specific guidelines

Anonymity Requirements

For anonymous submission mode:

1. Author names and affiliations must not appear
2. Use "Anonymous Submission" as sole author
3. Anonymize self-citations (cite as third person)
4. Clear PDF metadata with a metadata-cleaning tool
5. Do not include links that reveal identity
6. References to authors' previous work must be anonymized

Title and Author Formatting

% Single institution:
\author{
    Author Name
}
\affiliations{
    Affiliation Name\\
    Address Line 1\\
    [e-mail]
}

% Multiple institutions with superscripts:
\author{
    Author One\textsuperscript{\rm 1},
    Author Two\textsuperscript{\rm 2}
}
\affiliations{
    \textsuperscript{\rm 1}Affiliation 1\\
    \textsuperscript{\rm 2}Affiliation 2\\
    [e-mail], [e-mail]
}

Use \equalcontrib for equal contribution footnotes.

Abstract and Links

\begin{abstract}
Your abstract here (no references in abstract).
\end{abstract}

% For camera-ready (only):
\begin{links}
    \link{Code}{https://example.com/code}
    \link{Datasets}{https://example.com/datasets}
\end{links}

Section Organization

Arrange sections in this order:

1. Main content sections (numbered)
2. Appendices (optional, use \appendix then lettered sections)
3. Ethical Statement (optional, unnumbered)
4. Acknowledgments (optional, unnumbered)
5. References (unnumbered, last section)

Recommended Section Structure for AI Papers

1. Introduction — Problem statement, motivation, contributions (enumerate 3-5 key contributions)
2. Related Work — Background and positioning against prior work
3. Preliminaries — Mathematical notation, definitions, background concepts
4. Methodology — Core algorithm/model with sufficient technical depth
5. Experiments — Datasets, baselines, metrics, results, statistical analysis
6. Conclusion — Summary, limitations, future work

Writing the Introduction (Critical for AAAI)

AAAI reviewers often decide within the first page. Structure your introduction as:

\section{Introduction}
% Paragraph 1: Problem and motivation (2-3 sentences)
The problem of X has become increasingly important due to Y...

% Paragraph 2: Gap in existing work (2-3 sentences)
Prior work has addressed X through approaches A, B, and C.
However, these approaches suffer from limitations including...

% Paragraph 3-4: Our approach (3-4 sentences)
In this paper, we propose a novel approach that...
Key contributions of our work include:
\begin{itemize}
    \item A new formulation of X as a Y problem...
    \item An efficient algorithm with O(n) complexity...
    \item Extensive experiments on 5 benchmark datasets...
\end{itemize}

% Paragraph 5: Paper roadmap (optional)
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows...

Figures and Tables

• Use .jpg, .png, or .pdf only (no .eps, .ps, .gif)
• Place at top of page when possible
• Caption under the figure, above the table
• 9-point minimum for caption text, 10-point roman
• Use booktabs for professional tables (no vertical rules)
• Number figures/tables sequentially

\begin{figure}[t]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{figure}
\caption{Figure caption here.}
\label{fig:example}
\end{figure}

% Professional table with booktabs:
\begin{table}[t]
\caption{Main results on benchmark datasets. Best results in \textbf{bold}.}
\label{tab:results}
\centering
\begin{tabular}{lccc}
    \toprule
    Dataset & Method A & Method B & Ours \\
    \midrule
    Dataset1 & 85.2 & 87.4 & \textbf{91.3} \\
    Dataset2 & 72.1 & 75.8 & \textbf{79.2} \\
    \bottomrule
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

References (natbib)

The aaai2026.sty automatically sets the bibliography style. Use natbib commands:

% In preamble:
\usepackage{natbib}  % NO options

% In document:
\bibliography{your_bibfile}

% Citation commands:
\citet{key}         % (Author Year)
\shortcite{key}     % (Year)
\citeauthor{key}    % Author
\citeyear{key}      % Year

For self-citations in anonymous mode: cite in third person ("Smith et al. showed..." not "we showed").

Bibliography Best Practices

% Good bibliography entry:
@inproceedings{smith2024example,
  author    = {Smith, John and Doe, Jane},
  title     = {A Novel Approach to X},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of AAAI},
  year      = {2024},
  pages     = {1234--1245},
  publisher = {AAAI}
}

% For anonymous submission, cite as:
Smith et al. showed that...  % Instead of We showed...

Disallowed Commands and Packages

Forbidden packages:

• authblk, balance, color, CJK, float, flushend, fontenc
• fullpage, geometry, grffile, hyperref, navigator
• multicol, nameref, savetrees, setspace, stfloats
• tabu, titlesec, tocbibind, ulem, wrapfig

Forbidden commands:

• \nocopyright, \addtolength, \balance, \baselinestretch
• \clearpage, \columnsep, \newpage, \pagebreak
• \pagestyle, \tiny, \vspace{-...}, \vskip{-...}

Typography Rules

• Font: Times Roman or Nimbus (required)
• Size: 10-point text with 12-point leading
• Margins: 0.75" sides, 0.75" top (non-first pages), 1.25" bottom
• Columns: Two-column format (required)
• No color text — color only in figures (CMYK, not RGB)
• No Type 3 fonts in any portion including graphics

AI-Specific Writing Conventions

Mathematical Notation

Define all notation clearly before use:

\section{Preliminaries}
Let $\mathcal{X} = \{x_1, \dots, x_n\}$ denote the set of input instances...
We use bold lowercase letters $\mathbf{x}$ for vectors and uppercase
$\mathbf{X}$ for matrices. $\|\mathbf{x}\|_2$ denotes the Euclidean norm.

Algorithm Description

\begin{algorithm}[tb]
\caption{The Proposed Algorithm}
\label{alg:proposed}
\begin{algorithmic}[1]
\REQUIRE Dataset $\mathcal{D}$, learning rate $\eta$, epochs $T$
\ENSURE Trained model parameters $\theta$
\STATE Initialize $\theta_0$ randomly
\FOR{$t = 1$ to $T$}
    \STATE Sample mini-batch $\mathcal{B} \sim \mathcal{D}$
    \STATE Compute gradient $\nabla \mathcal{L}(\theta_{t-1}; \mathcal{B})$
    \STATE Update $\theta_t \leftarrow \theta_{t-1} - \eta \nabla \mathcal{L}$
\ENDFOR
\RETURN $\theta_T$
\end{algorithmic}
\end{algorithm}

Experiment Reporting Standards

AAAI expects rigorous experimental evaluation:

\section{Experiments}
\subsection{Setup}
We evaluate on four benchmark datasets:
\begin{itemize}
    \item \textbf{Dataset A}: X instances, Y features, source: URL
    \item \textbf{Dataset B}: ...
\end{itemize}
Metrics: Accuracy, F1-score (macro-averaged), and AUC-ROC.
We compare against: (1) baseline method, (2) state-of-the-art method A,
(3) state-of-the-art method B. All experiments run 5 times with different
random seeds; we report mean $\pm$ standard deviation.

\subsection{Main Results}
Results are summarized in \autoref{tab:results}.
Our method outperforms all baselines with statistically significant
improvements (paired t-test, $p < 0.01$).

\subsection{Ablation Study}
We ablate each component of our approach in \autoref{tab:ablation}.
Removing component X degrades performance by Y\%, confirming its importance.

Rebuttal Preparation

AAAI uses author responses during review:

\section*{Response to Reviewers}

% Address each concern systematically
\textbf{Regarding Reviewer 1's concern about X:}
We thank the reviewer for this comment. To clarify...
[Provide additional evidence, analysis, or explanation]

\textbf{Regarding the comparison with Y:}
We added new experiments comparing with Y in the supplementary material.
Results show our method remains superior even under the suggested settings.

Rebuttal Do's and Don'ts

DO:

• Thank reviewers for constructive feedback
• Address every concern systematically
• Provide new evidence when asked
• Be polite and professional
• Acknowledge valid criticisms

DON'T:

• Be defensive or argumentative
• Dismiss concerns without explanation
• Make unsubstantiated claims
• Argue about scores

Camera-Ready Specifics

After acceptance:

1. Comment out \def\aaaianonymous{true}
2. Add complete author/affiliation information
3. Include links environment with code/dataset URLs
4. Sign and submit AAAI copyright form
5. Submit as single .tex file (no \input for sections)
6. Include .bib file(s) separately

Camera-Ready Checklist

• Anonymous flag commented out
• All author names and affiliations complete
• \begin{links} with code/dataset URLs added
• Copyright form signed and submitted
• Single .tex file (no \input commands)
• .bib file included separately
• All figures in correct format
• Compiles without errors

Checklist Before Submission

• Compiles with pdflatex without errors
• Author info removed (submission) or complete (camera-ready)
• PDF uses only Type-1 or Embedded TrueType fonts
• All figures in .jpg/.png/.pdf format
• No forbidden packages or commands used
• Page count within limits (7+1 pages)
• References in correct format using natbib
• Abstract contains no citations
• Self-citations anonymized (submission mode)
• All notation defined before use
• Experimental results include statistical significance
• Introduction clearly states contributions