Work · keeping your reputation
"AI was used" — when to disclose
30-second gist~30s read
A short rule that's saved a lot of careers: if AI helped, mention it. If you'd be embarrassed to be asked, mention it loudly.
Quiet career damage in 2025-26 has overwhelmingly come from people who used AI heavily and pretended they didn't, then got caught. The using wasn't the problem. The hiding was.
If you want more
When you almost certainly should disclose
- Anything graded, assessed, or attributed to your individual work.
- Client deliverables that were promised to be human-made.
- Photos, illustrations, or audio you publish as your own.
- Anything where the audience is paying you for your judgement (legal advice, medical advice, journalism, creative writing).
- Code that goes into critical systems — disclose what AI generated and what you reviewed.
When you don't need to
- Routine drafts the same way you wouldn't disclose using spell-check.
- Summarising your own meeting notes for your own use.
- Brainstorming ideas that you then properly developed yourself.
- Translation tools you've always used.
The pragmatic test: if you'd be unbothered to have someone watch you produce the work, you don't need to disclose. If you'd close the laptop, you probably do.
Lessons that teach this
Plain AI Curriculum lessons that anchor on this topic — short reads with practice, free under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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What you can paste into AI — and what you really shouldn'tAfter this lesson, you'll have a one-sentence rule for what's safe to paste into a public AI — and a clear understanding of how that rule changes when your company gives you an enterprise tool.
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When AI is in your meetings, and when to say it helpedAfter this lesson, you'll be able to recognise when AI is taking notes in your meetings and decide whether to keep it on — and you'll have a one-sentence rule for when to say AI helped with your work.
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"Will AI replace me?" — the honest answerAfter this lesson, you'll have an honest, non-doomer, non-cheerleader picture of what AI is shifting in your work — and one habit that protects your career through the change.
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Two conversations at workWalk away with two short conversations to have this week — one with yourself (a paste-rule audit for your role), one with your manager (a 5-minute disclosure check-in). Both pull from lessons 1-4.