Why We Should All Be Disclosing AI Use

This article is part of an interview with Jena Wuu, writer, speaker, and advisor on trust and expertise online. This interview was conducted for Tech.co’s AI newsletter, The AI Strat. For more interviews, with AI experts on the latest trending topics, subscribe to the newsletter.

AI is speeding things up. Email marketing is automated, cyber attacks work on a bigger scale, and more content proliferates social platforms. In turn, users have responded and continue to respond with dismay, annoyance, and sometimes outright hostility.

Trust, arguably, is eroding online. Swaths of AI-generated posts make it difficult to know who is authentic and genuine. However, recent moves made by LinkedIn and Substack could help users pinpoint what content is AI-generated, but should we start being honest from the get-go?

I spoke to Jena Wuu, previously Global Policy Programs Head for Social Impact and Information Ecosystem at Meta. In the age of AI content, transparency and trust are more important than ever, and how we choose who to trust is changing.

There Is More Content Online Than There Used to Be

You wouldn’t get any strange looks if you said it’s harder than ever to get attention online. Social platforms are drowning in content, from cute cat videos to tech bros advertising productivity regimes. Part of this is because of AI.

AI tools, mostly generative ones, have made it easier for individuals and companies to produce content en masse. There are AI brainstorming tools, AI script writers, AI video editors, even AI actors.

Most recently, a study from Pangram found almost half of all LinkedIn long posts are AI-generated.

Shortly after these findings became public, LinkedIn announced a ‘seems like AI slop’ button, that users could click if they felt a post used AI. Just over a week before this, online publishing and blogging platform Substack released an AI detection tool.

“I think there is a common misperception out there that platforms want to be perpetuating low-quality content,” says Jena Wuu, a writer, advisor, and speaker on trust online.

Previously, Wuu was a Global Policy Programs Head for Meta, and pitched its Global Information Ecosystem program. She tells me AI content poses a lot of risk to today’s platforms, “because users don’t want to engage with inauthentic content, and advertisers don’t want to be on platforms where there are inauthentic users.”

For Wuu, these new tools from Substack and LinkedIn are a positive thing, provided people use them. “If we could all be active in telling platforms about what kind of content we want to see, that’s where platforms are going to prioritize.”

These tools are forcing AI users out of the shadows. The people scrolling past will know if you’ve used AI, or not. What’s most interesting, Wuu argues, is how people will interpet content that is flagged as AI-generated.

AI Is Generally Disliked and Called Out Online

NBC News reported in March that people generally like AI less than they like ICE in the US. From an online perspective, one doesn’t have to look very far to find an instance of a user being called out for using AI, and reactions are rarely positive.

Wuu thinks there are quite a few reasons why AI sentiment is mostly negative. First, AI companies haven’t done a good job of building trust with users. Secondly, people feel a loss of control, and that the technology is being forced upon them.

“I think that there’s a feeling of a loss of control about it, and people feel like it’s being forced on them. And so if they’re on a platform where they’re there for leisure and relaxation, or they’re genuinely trying to look for information, then of course it’s going to be agitating when you’re seeing all this and having all of this forced on you again.” – Jena Wuu, writer, advisor, and speaker on trust online

Likewise, the impact on jobs is still pretty uncertain. “We don’t know what the impact of AI is going to be on our jobs,” Wuu says. All of this would contribute to why someone seeing AI-generated content, on a platform they’re on for leisure, would feel frustrated.

This is another way using Wuu’s call for people to participate, by using the LinkedIn AI slop button, for example, could lead to a shift away from AI content on social platforms. However, the black-and-white nature of these tools is a point of concern.

In my opinion, not all crimes created with AI are equal. On one end of the spectrum, you have people generating entire content suites with AI. On the other, you might have someone who uses AI as part of their research process, or as a way to ask for constructive feedback. The LinkedIn AI slop button, for instance, doesn’t state how someone has used AI.

From Wuu’s perspective, this is why human judgement remains critical. Everyone has a different tolerance for AI, she explains. Some people won’t mind entire posts generated by AI, others will. Over time, people will figure out their preferences, and this will shape the future of social platforms.

Giving People Context for How You’re Using AI

There are legitimate reasons why someone might use AI to create content. A lack of social media experience, or a lack of a budget, for example. Not everyone is a social media star, and in some way, AI has allowed everyone entry into the world of content, despite their background.

Content isn’t the exception, either. Vibe coding platforms allow non-coders to make websites. Anyone can have any concept explained to them in simple terms by just asking a chatbot.

Overall, I believe everyone should be transparent about AI use. It would remove the guesswork, and inspire transparency and trust. LinkedIn, with its new button, and Substack with its detection tool, are giving users this opportunity. Like many things, Wuu agrees AI use is nuanced, and that context is critical for how we approach it.

“What I would love to see is for entities and creators to have some kind of transparency about how they use AI. And that’s something that Substack is doing, they’re offering writers a way to make a statement about how they approach the use of AI. I think that’s a really good thing to have because we need context.” – Jena Wuu

Additionally, disclosing how you’ve used AI will provide some protection. If your content does get flagged as AI, for example, you’ll have details to back up how exactly you’ve used AI, if you have at all.

Recently, Anthropic announced all of the content generated by its Claude models would include a watermark. This is a feature already done by Google’s Gemini, and more AI companies may have to follow suit with similar approaches to stay in line with the recent EU AI Act, which includes a Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content.

So, there’s a future where all AI-generated content needs to be identified as such. This certainly promises to foster a culture of trust we’ve lost on social platforms.

Ultimately, when people are browsing online, they are drawn to content they can trust. Wuu says building this trust involves having a human element to what you’ve created, “at the end of the day, people trust people,” she says.

The most important thing for brands to do in 2026 is be authentic and trustworthy. This might not mean getting AI to generate posts for you. It might mean using AI to some extent, but truthfully, nobody wants to hear from AI. They want to hear from people.