How do I cite ChatGPT?
Cite the company that made the model as the author, not the model itself — APA's template is: OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
Last reviewed 15 August 2026 · The HumanFlow team
The part people get wrong is authorship. ChatGPT is the work being cited, not the author of it, so the reference is structured the way you would cite any software: the organisation that produced it, the year, the name and version, a bracketed description of what it is, and where it lives.
The awkward part is retrievability, and APA addresses it directly. Its guidance notes that "the results of a ChatGPT 'chat' are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications, with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating". Neither of the two normal options quite fits, which is why the reference points at the tool rather than at your conversation.
That leaves your reader unable to check the thing you cited. APA's answer is to supply it yourself: "You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated." Include the prompt as well as the response — the prompt is half of what produced the output.
Other style guides differ in the details, and your department may have its own instruction that overrides both. Check that before formatting anything, because a citation in the wrong house style is a smaller problem than a citation your course did not want at all.
When this answer changes
It changes with the style guide. MLA, Chicago and Harvard each handle generative AI differently, and some journals now require an AI-use statement in the methods rather than a reference at all.
It also changes when your institution requires disclosure separately from citation. Citing the tool and declaring that you used it are two different obligations, and satisfying one does not satisfy the other.
Where to go next
- What counts as AI assistance? — Whether the use you are citing needs declaring at all depends on your institution's rule.
- Academic integrity — One identical piece of work under three policy shapes, with three different outcomes.
- Plagiarism — Why citing correctly and avoiding plagiarism are the same problem, and rewording is not a defence.
- Plagiarism score vs AI score — Two numbers people conflate constantly, and only one points at something you can open.
Sources
One of our direct answers.