In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about AI and how experts should use it. I have cautioned experts not to rely on platforms like Claude and ChatGPT to write their content.

But I recognize that AI can be a powerful tool when used to enhance rather than replace your thinking.

When the world is suddenly filled with AI-generated content, it is difficult to catch anyone’s attention. People stop trusting. And ultimately, they stop reading.

Blair Enns, founder of sales consultancy Win Without Pitching, has developed a system that he hopes will help counter this problem.

He calls it the AI Contribution Scale. It is a 6-point scale he uses to disclose if and how he used AI to develop a piece of content. It runs from completely human-written (AI-0) to AI-generated (AI-5). In between are various levels of AI input, from research assistance to deep collaboration to drafting (albeit with significant subsequent human editing).

At the bottom of each blog post he indicates the level of AI he used to produce it. As of this writing, the only post that wasn’t AI-0 (100% human-written) was the one that introduced the scale.

This got me wondering how transparent professional services experts should be about how they use AI in their own writing. Is this type of disclosure over the top? Or is it a public service that readers actually want? Will it feel like a gimmick or will it build trust?

To be honest, I’m still wrestling with these questions. If your content is always, or almost always, written without the help of AI, a system like Blair’s might indeed build trust. You are instilling confidence—your readers know they are receiving your ideas in your own words.

But what if you routinely use AI for research or drafting your content? Even if you spend time editing the final product and ensuring the voice is your own, would disclosing that you used AI at all introduce a seed of doubt in the reader’s mind? Or do people no longer care and accept AI input as routine or even beneficial?

I’m not sure. We are all navigating this new world together, my friends. One feature I admire about Blair’s approach is the way in which it conveys his honesty and integrity. It also provides insight into how a blog post or newsletter article was produced.

So I ask you, reader, do people want to know how the pieces they read were created? And might this be a way to differentiate yourself from other experts?