Our mission, Our AI



As a mission driven digital research library, Zendy is committed to helping reduce inequality in access to academic literature for audiences worldwide. We are committed to taking an ethically driven approach in the design, development, deployment, and use of our AI-based solutions. We prioritise the responsible and ethical use of AI, ensuring we address and minimise any potential negative impacts, whether societal or environmental. Our commitment centres around placing human values at the core of our responsible AI practices.
By working closely in partnership with publishers and data providers to create an affordable and accessible route to peer reviewed content, we aim to even the playing field of global research, enabling students and researchers from underserved markets to participate in the global academic and policy dialogue and to contribute to identifying solutions to our planet’s major challenges.
We believe that AI has an important role to play in fostering a fairer research and publishing ecosystem. By leveraging AI, we can offer a range of innovative solutions to facilitate access to content and to make the search journey quicker and more efficient, thereby supporting researchers’ needs irrespective of funding or location.
Whilst AI has the potential to transform research and education, Zendy acknowledges that it also raises ethical concerns around issues such as bias, privacy, and accountability. In response to these concerns and to the growing discussion around AI, we have formulated a list of AI imperatives to guide Zendy’s strategy for the development and integration of AI technologies into our products.
Zendy’s AI Imperatives:
AI in service of a better world
In line with our mission to reduce inequality in research and publishing, we believe AI can help to positively impact society by facilitating access to and use of scientific content. Our portfolio of AI solutions and our ongoing development work reflects this ethos, with a focus on solutions designed to support our users in their search for quality, reliable data.
As a signatory to the UN’s Global Publishing Compact, and working hand in hand with our partners, we aim to offer a more enriched, personalised learning and discovery environment for all users globally, with AI very much in service of a better world.
Openness, trust and transparency
Zendy embraces transparency in AI, committing to clear communication about how our AI systems work, the data they use, and the decision-making processes they employ.
We explain our use of AI tools, defining them in terms of their abilities and limitations. We clarify how they fit into our platform’s ecosystem and how users can make the most of them. If the tool makes use of partner copyrighted data, as per licensed agreements, we put in place limitations and clear safeguards on that use.
We recognise the need for openness, trust and transparency across all our activities to foster trust with our partners and clients, and we are always open to feedback.
Personal privacy, regulation and data governance
Zendy is a committed advocate of personal privacy. As we continue to develop new solutions and acquire larger data sets, we safeguard the personal information which is shared with us by implementing robust security policies and procedures to secure our systems. We also ensure that data is collected, reproduced, and protected in a compliant and appropriate manner in accordance with applicable privacy laws and regulations.
Zendy’s AI systems prioritise data privacy and security by adhering to data protection regulations GDPR) and implementing practices like differential privacy when necessary.
We proactively follow our own internal governance policies as well as external regulations to ensure our AI development is aligned with sustainable practices, including national and international guidelines on AI privacy and ethics.
Equity, unfair bias and data integrity
Fairness and equity are at the heart of Zendy’s mission to help create a better world. As we develop and implement new AI tools and solutions, we put in place procedures to ensure reliability and carry out extensive review. We recognise that biases and hallucinations present challenges in machine learning models, similarly to their presence in human cognition.
To minimise these challenges, Zendy AI uses high-quality, accurate data, avoiding harmful or biases data sets. We also implement state-of-the-art techniques, including prevention and mitigation mechanisms like “chain-of-verification” and “counterfactual reasoning”, which are integrated into our models.
Human oversight and accountability
We believe human oversight is key to the successful development and deployment of reliable and ethical AI-powered solutions. We maintain human oversight of the development of our AI tools and their output from design to deployment to ensure reliability and quality.
We routinely conduct evaluation benchmarks on our models to assess their tendency to reproduce falsehoods and biases, as well as to measure their accuracy. This ongoing evaluation process enables us to continually enhance and refine our models.
We are fully accountable for our tools. We apply a systematic risk management approach to each phase of the AI system lifecycle and adopt responsible business practices to address risks related to AI.
Sustainable AI
At Zendy, promoting responsible innovation is at the heart of our mission. We work to ensure that our development and use of AI solutions contributes positively to society and the environment and considers the long-term impact of technology on the world.
In line with the tenets of ethical AI, we deploy our technologies in a manner that adheres to responsible and ethical principles. We strive to maximise their long-term sustainability for our stakeholders and the field of research more broadly.
- Zendy is proud to be mission led with social impact at the heart of our values. Together with our stakeholders, we aim to leverage AI to contribute to solving global challenges such as the right to quality education and reducing inequalities.
- We believe in a fair and sustainable approach to using data which is licensed to Zendy for use by our AI systems. We do not train our AI systems on publisher data, instead using a technique called Retrieval Augmented Generation. We offer full referencing and compensation to publishers for use of their content.
- We commit to supporting Green AI and to minimising theenvironmental impact of AI research and operations by prioritising the development of energy-efficient models.
- We believe in fair, inclusive and equitable access to AI. Our AI tools are geared towards supporting all human learning as humans adapt to continuing AI advancements.

We Are Exhibiting UKSG 2025 Annual Conference & Exhibition in Brighton!
We're thrilled to announce that we will be exhibiting at the 48th UKSG Conference from March 31 to April 2, 2025, in Brighton, UK. Visit us at booth #79 to experience: Live Demonstrations: See how Zendy’s AI-powered tools, like ZAIA and AI Summarisation, can streamline your research with reference-backed answers to all your research questions and concise summaries of complex academic papers Personalised Consultations: Meet our team to discuss how Zendy can support your library’s digital transformation. Interactive Sessions: Learn about our affordable subscription models and global accessibility initiatives. Meet Kamran Kardan, Sara Crowley Vigneau and Lisette van Kessel to learn how Zendy is making knowledge more accessible and affordable for researchers, students, and professionals worldwide. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the future of scholarly communication. To schedule a meeting with our team, please email us at info@zendy.io About UKSG Annual Conference: The UKSG Conference is a premier event in scholarly communications, attracting global delegates including librarians, publishers, researchers, and students. It offers an excellent platform for networking and exploring the latest trends in the research and publishing community. To learn more visit: https://www.uksg.org/events/conference25/ .wp-block-image img { max-width: 50% !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; }

We are Attending the 20th Annual Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference
We’re excited to announce that we will be attending the 20th Annual Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference from March 23–26, 2025, in Austin, Texas! This milestone event brings together professionals in e-resources, digital services, and the library industry to share insights, foster innovation, and build connections. Let’s Connect! If you’re attending ER&L 2025 or will be in Austin during the event, set up and schedule a meeting with our Co-founder Kamran Kardan. Please email us at info@zendy.io to schedule a time to discuss ZAIA’s vision for the future of AI in research and digital innovation. About ER&L 2025 The ER&L Conference is a community-driven event celebrating its 20th year of bringing together professionals passionate about electronic resources and digital services. With a peer-reviewed program shaped by industry experts, it’s the perfect space to explore trends, technologies, and solutions shaping the future of libraries. Location: Austin, USADates: March 23–26, 2025 Join us as we celebrate two decades of innovation in e-resources management! We look forward to seeing you there! To learn more visit – https://electroniclibrarian.org .wp-block-image img { max-width: 85% !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; }

Announcing our RAG-Based Revenue-Sharing Model for Academic Publishers
We are excited to announce a first-of-its-kind revenue-sharing model for AI-generated content, ensuring that publishers are fairly compensated when their paywalled research is cited by AI. Zendy Co-founder Kamran Kardan Our domain-specific large language model (LLM), ZAIA, uses Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to retrieve data from a diverse collection of open access (OA) and paywalled metadata through licensing agreements with publishers. Based on reference generation by the LLM, our new revenue-sharing model enables a fair and sustainable approach to compensating academic publishers for the use of their content by AI. Empowering Publishers with AI Innovation For years, major academic publishers have been cautious about AI companies using their research, citing copyright concerns, revenue impact, and the need for proper attribution. Our new model introduces a transparent, ethical approach for publishers to monetise their content in the AI era. Many large language models are restricted to training on publicly available research, as major publishers have not yet actively licensed their work to AI companies. Our revenue-sharing model is one of the first of its kind, ensuring clear consent, proper attribution, and fair compensation based on content retrieval. The transparent revenue-sharing mechanism ensures fair compensation for publishers based on the number of references provided in ZAIA’s responses. Our co-founder, Kamran Kardan, said: "This is a positive shift for the academic publishing industry. For the first time, AI is being used to drive revenue back to publishers instead of bypassing them. Ethical AI also means giving credit—and compensation—where it’s due. In the long term, we believe even authors should share in this revenue." We are partnering with a range of international publishers on this model, including IT Governance, Lexxion, British Online Archives, and Lived Places Publishing. Additionally, the RAG model is available for open access publishers, and we are currently exploring alternative compensation models for open access. A Leap Forward for Researchers and Institutions ZAIA provides users with precise, contextually relevant content tailored to their research needs. It offers answers to researchers' questions with reference-backed responses, ensuring that researchers and institutions can access high-quality, peer-reviewed materials while supporting the publishers who produce them. Promoting Sustainable and Ethical AI Content Partnerships To deliver accurate, unbiased, and comprehensive insights, large language models (LLMs) require diverse academic content. Our RAG-based model encourages broader collaboration between publishers and AI companies, fostering ethical agreements rooted in mutual licensing. Direct licensing with publishers allows us to guarantee high-quality, accurate, and up-to-date content, including retractions and data updates, thereby placing research integrity at the heart of our platform and our development of sustainable AI. We invite publishers, researchers, and institutions to collaborate in shaping the future of AI-driven research. To learn more about partnership opportunities, visit www.zendy.io or contact us at partnerships@zendy.io. About Zendy We are an AI-powered research library with over 780,000 users across 190+ countries. Designed to streamline the research process, we provide access to millions of journals, articles, and e-books, while offering a range of AI-driven tools, including ZAIA, an AI assistant that helps researchers expedite their research journey. We collaborate with leading academic publishers to make scholarly content more accessible and affordable, ensuring that users can explore high-quality research with ease. Zendy was created to facilitate access to academic literature. By addressing the key challenges that researchers face with traditional ways of finding relevant, high-quality academic content, we strive to provide peace of mind to students, researchers, professionals, and knowledge enthusiasts. We are developed by Knowledge E in a growing collaboration with researchers, students, institutions, and publishers. Our mission is to democratise access to content by making it more affordable and accessible. There are no limitations on reading, just simple access to scholarly resources. For more information visit zendy.io. .wp-block-image img { max-width: 85% !important; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; }