AI POLICY

Last updated: October 2026

In brief:

  • Every article we publish is written by a real person, about real experience. AI does not write, draft or generate any of our articles, interviews, memoir, personal accounts, reporting or fiction.

  • We use AI only in limited, assistive ways behind the scenes: website coding, troubleshooting, and improving usability and accessibility.

  • Some illustrations, occasionally including a cover, may be made with AI help. These are purely illustrative, and we use AI for them only when the work is beyond the time, skills or resources we have available.

  • We intend to use less AI over time, not more, and to create more paid opportunities for real artists, writers and creative people as the magazine grows.

1. Our commitment

Chapter & Chronicle exists to share real people, real lives and real-world experience. Every interview, memoir, personal account, piece of reporting and story we publish comes from a real person. Our purpose is to give those voices a home and to create as many real-world opportunities as we can for the people behind them.

We believe art and language are among the most important ways people express who they are, connect with one another and make sense of their lives. That belief shapes everything we do, including how we approach artificial intelligence (AI).

This policy sets out plainly what we use AI for, how we use it, and what we will never use it for.

2. What we never use AI for

AI plays no part in writing anything we publish. We do not use AI to:

  • write, draft or generate any article, interview, memoir, personal account, report, story or poem

  • invent, embellish or imitate lived experience

  • create interviewees, contributors, quotations, interview answers or events presented as fact

  • give anyone a false identity, background or credentials

  • produce research findings, statistics or evidence

  • make editorial decisions about what we publish

Our fiction is also created and written entirely by real people, and is always clearly presented as fiction.

AI can imitate the shape of a human story, but it cannot live one (at least not yet anyway!). The words you read in Chapter & Chronicle belong to the authors who wrote them, and the experiences they describe are their own.

3. Where we do use AI

Our use of AI is limited to three assistive areas, all behind the scenes:

  1. Website and technical support. Help with coding, building and maintaining our website, fixing technical problems, and improving usability and accessibility for our readers. We review, check and test every change before relying on it.

  2. Finding sources. Help locating published research, official reports and other peer- reviewed reference material. AI is only ever a starting point for finding material, never a source in itself. Our writers and editors read and verify every original source themselves, and we never treat an AI response as evidence.

  3. Illustrative images, including some covers. Help creating or editing some illustrations, and occasionally a cover image, only when producing the artwork ourselves would go beyond the time, skills or resources available to us. Section 4 explains this in full.

That is the full extent of our use. None of it extends to writing editorial content. If our use changes in any meaningful way, we will update this policy immediately.

4. About our images and covers

Wherever we can, our artwork is made by people. AI is a fallback for some image creation, not our default. We use it only when creating the artwork ourselves would exceed our available time, skills or resources.

When an image or cover has been created or edited with AI:

  • It is purely illustrative. It reflects the subject, setting or mood of a piece and helps readers find their way around the magazine.

  • It is not a record of fact. It is not a photograph of a real event or a depiction of a real interviewee, and it does not show that any person, place or event looked as illustrated.

  • It is checked by a person. A member of our team reviews it before publication for suitability, misleading details and potential rights concerns.

We do not currently label individual images by how they were made. This policy is therefore our disclosure for the whole website: any illustration, including a cover, may contain AI-generated elements. Routine adjustments such as resizing or colour correction are not treated as AI generation.

5. Why we use AI at all

Chapter & Chronicle is produced by a small team with limited time and money. Members of our team, including people in creative roles, balance their work with disabilities, health conditions, caring responsibilities and other commitments.

Used carefully and sparingly, AI helps us to:

  • give our team the time and flexibility they need, without pressure to work beyond what is healthy or possible

  • keep our website accessible and easy to use

  • keep as much of the magazine as possible free, and our paid offerings affordable, so it can reach as many people as possible for as long as possible

These tools support the people doing the work. They do not replace anyone's authorship, creativity or editorial judgement.

We never share a team member's or contributor's health, diagnosis or private circumstances to explain their availability or use of assistive tools. We are grateful to our readers for understanding that the magazine is made by people with full lives beyond its pages.

6. Privacy and contributors' work

  • We protect the people who trust us with their stories.

  • We do not enter confidential interviews, unpublished submissions, identifying details or sensitive personal material into AI tools.

  • Any other material is shared with an AI tool only with the explicit permission of the person it belongs to. We share only what is strictly necessary, and we never assume a tool will keep it confidential. We also respect the rights of anyone whose words or images appear in a contributor's work: one person's permission never overrides another's.

  • We do not use contributors' work to train or fine-tune AI models.

7. Looking ahead: less AI, more people

Our aim is to use AI less over time, and eventually only where it is truly essential. As the magazine grows, we hope to:

  • commission more artwork from human artists and illustrators, reducing AI-assisted imagery to the absolute minimum

  • create more paid opportunities for writers, illustrators, editors and other creative people

  • build a real, shared community of readers and contributors, centred on human creativity and self-expression

Where an assistive tool helps a disabled team member take part in our work, we will keep it available. Our goal is to reduce reliance on AI and support the arts and languages, never to remove support that makes someone's participation possible.

8. Questions, feedback and updates

We know readers and creators hold a wide range of views about AI, and we respect them. We share how we use it openly so you can make an informed choice about engaging with Chapter & Chronicle.

We welcome your questions and concerns, and any practical suggestions that could help us support creative people, improve accessibility or rely less on AI. We would also love to hear pitches and firsthand accounts about AI, creativity, disability and working life. Please get in touch at hello@chapterchronicle.org.uk, or visit our contact page.

We review this policy as our practices develop and will update it to reflect any meaningful change. One thing will not change: every article we publish will always be written by a real person, drawing on real, lived experience.