AI Usage Scale · Level 1 of 0–5

Assisted

AI worked only on material you had already made. It invented nothing.

You made the work. AI only processed your material, or helped behind the scenes: correcting, faithfully transcribing or translating, cleaning, tagging, formatting, searching, or giving feedback. Except for a faithful transcription or translation of your material, nothing of the model's own — neither wording nor substance — appears in the published work.

This is the level when

Grammar, spelling, and style correction of sentences you wrote
Transcribing audio you recorded
Denoising, masking, or upscaling an image you shot
Tagging, formatting, summarising for your own use, or searching your own archive
Using AI to find sources, which you then read and verified yourself

This is not the level when

AI drafting a sentence, paragraph, image, or melody that survives into the work — that is Level 2 or above
AI originating or restructuring the argument itself rather than your prose — that is Level 2 or above, even if you wrote out every word yourself

Examples

An article you wrote, run through a model for grammar.
A podcast you recorded, transcribed by a model for the show notes.
A paper you wrote, checked by a model for typos before submission.
Code you wrote, with an AI assistant only renaming variables and formatting.

Say it in a sentence

Paste one of these into a byline, an article footer, a video description, a search-result description, or an email signature. No image required — a declaration that only works as a picture is a declaration half the web cannot read.

Short — for a byline or a bio

AI Usage Scale: Level 1 — Assisted.

Medium — for an article footer or a meta description

Written by the author; AI was used only for mechanical work such as correction and transcription. Level 1 on the AI Usage Scale.

Long — for an editor's note

The author made this work. AI was used only to process material the author had already produced — correcting, transcribing, or cleaning it. No sentence, image, or sound in the published work was invented by a model. This is Level 1 on the AI Usage Scale.

Put the mark on it

Inline SVG works offline without a request to this website. A hosted image sends a request to the hosting provider; you can also download and host it yourself.

Level 1 chip · no external font, no request

Inline SVG — recommended

Self-contained. Nothing to load, nothing to track.

<a href="https://usagescale.org/1" rel="ai-disclosure" title="Written by the author; AI was used only for mechanical work such as correction and transcription. Level 1 on the AI Usage Scale.">
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<title>AI Usage Scale: Level 1 — Assisted. AI worked only on material you had already made. It invented nothing.</title>
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</svg>
</a>

Inline SVG with the level name — where a first-time reader needs the word, not just the number

<a href="https://usagescale.org/1" rel="ai-disclosure" title="Written by the author; AI was used only for mechanical work such as correction and transcription. Level 1 on the AI Usage Scale.">
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="180.3" height="24" viewBox="0 0 180.3 24" role="img" aria-label="AI Usage Scale: Level 1 — Assisted. AI worked only on material you had already made. It invented nothing.">
<title>AI Usage Scale: Level 1 — Assisted. AI worked only on material you had already made. It invented nothing.</title>
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</svg>
</a>

Hosted image — if you would rather link it

<a href="https://usagescale.org/1"
   rel="ai-disclosure"
   title="Written by the author; AI was used only for mechanical work such as correction and transcription. Level 1 on the AI Usage Scale.">
  <img src="https://usagescale.org/badge/1.svg"
       alt="AI Usage Scale: Level 1 — Assisted. AI worked only on material you had already made. It invented nothing."
       width="123" height="24">
</a>

Plain text — where images cannot go

AI Usage Scale: Level 1 (Assisted) — https://usagescale.org/1

Let machines read it too

Mappings to other vocabularies are suggestions. They do not imply endorsement or support by Google, Schema.org, W3C, IPTC, or C2PA.

For the <head> of your page

<!-- AI Usage Scale proposal; custom metadata, not a registered standard -->
<meta name="ai-usage" content="1">
<meta name="ai-usage-standard" content="https://usagescale.org">

<!-- AI Usage Scale -->
<link rel="ai-disclosure" href="https://usagescale.org/1">

<!-- JSON-LD with a project-defined property; no dedicated Google Search support -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://schema.org/",
    "aiUsageLevel": "https://usagescale.org/spec#aiUsageLevel"
  },
  "@type": "CreativeWork",
  "aiUsageLevel": 1
}
</script>

Experimental ai-disclosure	`scope/review dependent`
IPTC	`algorithmicallyEnhanced`
Project-defined JSON-LD	`aiUsageLevel: 1`

No universal mapping: research can leave text untouched, while AI translation or correction may affect it. Assess the disclosed text and actual human review separately. The Community Group report covers text; the number alone does not identify the text's scope or review state. Choose any ai-disclosure declaration against that report's procedure.

If the parts differ

Optional. A single number describes the work as a whole. When parts of it differ sharply, declare them. The badge always shows one number; the breakdown lives behind the link. The headline level describes the part of the work that carries its meaning. Decorative material that a reasonable audience would not consider material to the work does not drive the headline — declare it here instead.