Substack’s new tool tells you who’s been writing their newsletters with AI
Substack is giving readers a way to estimate how much of a newsletter was written by AI, signaling a broader shift toward transparency around AI-assisted content.
Substack is rolling out a new feature that lets readers estimate how much of a newsletter may have been written with the help of artificial intelligence, according to a monitored public feed from TechCrunch.
The tool appears aimed at making AI involvement in newsletter writing more visible to readers, reflecting a growing push for transparency as generative AI becomes more common in publishing. Rather than leaving audiences to guess whether a post was fully human-written, heavily edited, or substantially assisted by AI, Substack’s new feature offers a way to surface that information more directly.
The change could matter for a platform built around creator-led publishing and reader trust. As newsletters increasingly mix original reporting, commentary, and AI-assisted drafting, questions about disclosure have become more prominent across the media and creator economy. Substack’s move suggests it is trying to give readers more context about how content is made without forcing creators into a one-size-fits-all label.
Based on the feed summary, the tool is not described as a perfect detector of authorship, but rather as an estimate of AI use. That distinction is important: AI-generated writing can be revised by humans, and human-written work can still involve AI for outlining, editing, or drafting support. A rough measure may help readers interpret content, but it also highlights the limits of automated classification.
The feature arrives amid wider debates over disclosure standards for AI-assisted media. Publishers, platforms, and independent writers have been weighing how to identify machine involvement in a way that is useful without being misleading. Substack’s approach appears to be part of that broader shift toward clearer labeling and reader-facing transparency.
The report is based on a monitored public feed and is attributed to TechCrunch.
Source: TechCrunch - https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/22/substacks-new-tool-tells-you-whos-been-writing-their-newsletters-with-ai/
