Area Chair

The target audience of the rebuttal stage is not only the reviewers but also the area chair, who may influence the final decision.

Some conferences have an 'Area Chair' role responsible for arbitrating when author and reviewer opinions are at an impasse and making the final decision on acceptance or rejection.

When there is a clear disagreement among reviewers or a procedural issue arises, the AC has the authority to ask reviewers to reconsider their opinions or even invite additional reviewers to participate in the evaluation.

The confidential message mechanism (confidential message to AC) is a non-public appeal channel available to authors when they encounter unfair reviews, distinct from the formal appeal process; it has a lower threshold for use but requires substantive supporting evidence.

When a review combines a low score with high confidence and the criticism is unjustified, it amplifies the gap between the review opinion and the actual evidence, making it easier for the AC to identify it as a review quality issue.

It is the norm for reviewers not to respond during the rebuttal stage, and the content of the authors' response will enter the AC's decision-making purview.

The most persuasive reason for bringing the situation to the AC's attention is that the review clearly violates conference rules, rather than that the reviewer did not respond.

The Area Chair (AC) is responsible for overseeing the review process for a batch of papers, coordinating reviewer opinions, and making final acceptance recommendations in cases of dispute.

AAAI's Phase 1 early reject is typically determined directly by area chairs or senior program committee members based on preliminary scores, without going through the full peer review process

The Meta Reviewer (also known as AC, Area Chair) is the key figure who synthesizes all reviews and makes the acceptance recommendation.