Honest about AI
Do you have to say it was made with AI?
4 min read · 30 July 2026
A text is finished, maybe a whole website, and part of it was made with AI. Just before handing it over, the question arrives: do you have to mention it? The short answer is no. The longer one has three exceptions worth knowing, because a lot of nonsense is being passed around about this right now.
Nobody lists their tools. A joiner doesn’t write on the invoice which saw she used, and a designer doesn’t note anywhere that Figma was involved. You sell the result and the responsibility for it, not the path to it. Saying nothing is therefore not concealment, it’s normal professional practice.
When the machine talks to people
If you build a chatbot, or have one built, it has to make clear to its users that they’re talking to a machine, unless that’s obvious. One sentence in the greeting is enough. And the thing itself has to say it, not you in a footnote. That’s what the EU AI Act says, Article 50, and this part applies from 2 August 2026.
When an image passes as a photo
A recognisable illustration needs no label. A generated image that passes as a real photo of the team, the studio or the owner does. We go one step further and don’t make such images in the first place; where a real photo is expected, a real photo belongs. And where we do work with generated scenes, the disclosure hangs right on the image: “Image generated with AI, based on my own photos.”
When someone asks
A customer on the phone, an AI clause in a contract, a procurement form. Then you answer honestly, always and completely. Larger companies now have such clauses in their contracts as standard, and ticking the wrong box there is an entirely different category of problem from simply not mentioning a tool.
What’s being told wrongly right now
Blogs are circulating the claim that from August, every freelancer must label every AI text. That is not what the law says. The text rule concerns content that informs the public on matters of public interest, meaning journalism and the like. And even there it falls away when a person has reviewed the content and takes responsibility for it. Then there’s the question of place: this is EU law. It applies when your work is used in the EU or you address an EU audience. Switzerland has no such duty today; its own bill is in the works.
As of July 2026, and not legal advice. For your specific case, the legal text counts, not a journal post.
How we handle it
For us, AI is the engine, not the author. It makes us fast; what goes out is what we decided, and we stand behind it. That’s why you’ll hardly find the word on our advertising, and why a direct question always gets the complete answer about which step runs through the machine and where the deciding happens. The two belong together. Whoever advertises their tool is selling the path instead of the result. Whoever hides it has a problem the moment the first contract clause shows up.
Our whole rule is six words long: don’t advertise it, never hide it.
How we work AI consulting
Where AI should work in your company, what it has to be capable of, and what you tell whom about it, we work that out on your real processes, not on slides. A look at the contracts and forms that actually concern you is part of it.
Write to us and bring the question that’s on your mind.
The moment before handing over becomes simple. If the thing talks to people, it says so itself. If an image looks like a photo, the label sits next to it. If someone asks, the honest answer comes. In every other case, you hand over what you can stand behind, and owe no footnote.