Let's Stop Hiding. Become Transparent About Your AI Usage

Raise your hand if you’ve never used AI for an email, project, client deliverable, or social media post.

Anyone still holding their hand up? I’m calling bullshit. #SorryNotSorry

AI has made cutting corners easier than ever. And as more people churn out barely reviewed work, even thoughtful work gets met with the same suspicion: “Did Nick use AI for this?”

In my case, the answer is often yes. But that tells you very little about what I actually used it for.

The best course of action? Lay your cards on the table. Tell people where AI contributed, what you brought to the work, and what you personally stand behind.

Admit it. You open a deliverable, everything looks good, but you’re still asking: “Was this done with AI?”

My response is, so what if it was? But that doesn’t address why people care. Your boss wants evidence of your judgment and capabilities. Your readers want to know someone stands behind what they’re reading.

When you leave them guessing, they start looking for clues instead of evaluating the work. Suddenly, we’re debating punctuation instead of whether the recommendation makes any damn sense.

I can’t control how much AI-generated content fills your feed. I can tell you how AI contributes to mine.

Moving forward, AI-generated images will have a clear caption, and any issue I use AI to help write or edit will include a short disclosure explaining how.

For this issue, AI helped organize my outline, challenge parts of my argument, draft and edit sections, and generate the hero image using previous illustrations as references.

The topic came from me. So did the experiences behind it and the decision about what deserves to land in your inbox.

I’m responsible for every word I publish, including anything AI helped me produce.

You can decide whether the finished work deserves your time. You’ll have a clearer understanding of how it came together.

“Great, Nick. Way to take the moral high ground. My boss won’t buy into this.”

Maybe she won’t. A disclosure won’t override a workplace policy or convince someone who opposes AI. But hiding its use gives you another problem to defend.

I don’t want readers or clients guessing how I produced my work. Transparency answers that question upfront. They can still challenge the process, but we can discuss what actually happened.

And yes, someone will insist they spotted the “watermarks” or accuse you of understating AI’s role. You don’t owe every keyboard warrior an argument.

You do owe your audience an honest explanation. If I’m comfortable using AI to produce the work, I should be comfortable explaining its role. There’s no apology required.

The other week, I sent a client an entity mapping and schema markup deliverable. Alongside it, I included a governance document explaining how to maintain accuracy, validate future changes, and repeat the process. It also explained how I used AI to do part of the work.

Looking back, I’d make my own contributions more explicit:

Sharing AI’s involvement didn’t reduce the deliverable’s value. It answered the “I wonder how much of this is AI” question before the client had to ask.

AI transparency isn’t an excuse for mistakes or shoddy work. My name is on the deliverable. I’m accountable for it.

“Created with AI” tells me a tool was involved. It doesn’t tell me whether you fixed a typo or generated an entire deliverable you never reviewed.

A useful disclosure answers three questions:

Keep it proportional. An image might need a one-sentence caption. A technical deliverable might need a section in its documentation.

You’ll see this transparency in #SEOForLunch and my client work. I’ll explain where AI contributed, all while taking responsibility for what I deliver. I’d encourage you to do the same.

You can disagree with how I use AI. But you shouldn’t have to guess.