How I Wrote My AI Disclosure Statement, and How You Can Write Yours

A 7-step framework and workbook for disclosing exactly how you use AI and why it matters.

Updated July 2026: Substack now gives every writer a "How I make this" field. This is the workbook I built in June for figuring out what to put in yours.

Every week I get some version of this question. Sometimes it’s direct: what tools do you use, what do you let AI do, how do you think about disclosure? Sometimes it’s the version people are almost too embarrassed to ask: I’ve been using it, but I’m not sure I should be, and I’m not sure what I’d say if someone asked me about it.

The anxiety underneath it usually comes down to three fears. I’ll seem lazy. I’ll lose my voice. Other writers will judge me. Naming them matters, because the fear points at the thing you haven’t worked out yet.

And what most people haven’t worked out is that AI doesn’t touch the work in one place. It touches research, brainstorming, structure, drafting, editing, repurposing. Those are six separate decisions. Most people can tell you their line on one or two of them. Ask about the rest and you get a pause.

You can’t disclose a practice you haven’t examined. That’s the real work, and it comes before any of the wording.

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This is where the free preview ends. Paid subscribers get the full workbook — including the seven-question framework for writing your own policy and the complete template — as a download below.

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