AI Use Disclosure
How AI tools fit into our editorial process — and the rules we won't break.
We use AI tools in our editorial workflow. This page explains exactly how, what the editorial oversight looks like, and the boundaries that don't move regardless of how good the tooling gets.
Where we use AI
Specifically, we use large language models (currently from Anthropic and OpenAI) to:
Aggregating manufacturer specs, official guidance and authoritative third-party sources into a structured brief before a piece is written.
Producing first-draft prose, which is then edited, fact-checked, and structured into our editorial format.
Identifying related pages on the site for cross-linking, and running on-page lint checks for metadata length, heading hierarchy, image alt text and slug style.
Spotting outdated claims, broken links and content that needs refreshing.
What we don't do
The rules below are independent of which AI tools we use, and they apply equally to AI-drafted and fully human-written content:
We never write "we stayed at this hotel", "we tested this harness", or "we visited this beach last summer" unless that is genuinely true. Our content is editorial — research-led, not experience-faked.
We never invent customer quotes, fake user reviews, or fabricated testimonials from people who do not exist.
We don't make up percentages, survey results, or study figures. Where we don't have hard data, we say so or use hedging language ("typically", "in many cases").
Real people on Reddit, forums and customer-review pages did not post their comments for republication on a commercial site. We use the themes and patterns of community discussion as research input — we do not quote, attribute, or link to individual users.
We don't fabricate credentials, invent expert authors, or pretend the site is staffed by people who don't exist.
Editorial oversight
Every piece published on Four Legged Guests is reviewed before it goes live. The review covers:
Claims that look out of place — wrong product specs, outdated regulations, accommodation policies that have changed — get checked against the source before publication.
Anything that reads as first-person experience or fake authority is removed or rewritten.
AI drafts can pick up patterns from training data. We rewrite anything that looks like a remix of a single competitor source.
Affiliate links are disclosed, marked with the right HTML attributes, and never hidden behind language that suggests they're not commercial.
Why we disclose this
The honest reason is trust. Readers who know how content is made make better decisions about what to act on. Disclosure costs us nothing and is the standard we want to set for the niche.
The shorter version: AI is part of how the site is made, editorial oversight is non-negotiable, and the rules above are not aspirational — they're the lines we won't cross regardless of how convenient it would be to.
Questions
If you have questions about how a specific piece was researched or want to flag content that crosses any of the lines above, please use the contact page. Our full editorial policy sets out our broader commitments.