How we use artificial intelligence

We think readers are entitled to know whether a person or a machine wrote what they are reading. This page says plainly where we use these tools and where we do not.

A person is responsible for everything we publish

No article is published on this site without a named member of the newsroom reading it, checking it and taking responsibility for it. That is true whether or not a tool was involved anywhere in the process. Responsibility does not transfer to software.

What we do not do

• We do not publish articles generated by AI and passed off as reporting.
• We do not use AI to invent quotes, sources, people or events.
• We do not use AI to create images that could be mistaken for a photograph of something that happened.
• We do not publish a byline for a person who did not do the work.

Where we may use it

Used carefully, these tools do save a small newsroom time on work that is not reporting. Where we use them, it is for:

• Transcribing interviews and translating material, which a journalist then checks against the original.
• Correcting spelling and grammar, and suggesting headline options that an editor chooses between.
• Summarising long public documents so a journalist knows where to read closely — never as the basis of a story on its own.
• Routine technical work behind the scenes, such as tidying up archived text or suggesting image descriptions for accessibility.

When we will tell you

If a tool is ever used in a way that shapes the substance of an article — not the spelling, but what it says — we will say so in the article itself, not only on this page. If we publish an illustration that was generated rather than photographed, the caption will say so.

Your material

We do not feed reader messages, story tips or the personal details of sources into public AI services. A tip sent to this newsroom stays in this newsroom.