How I Use AI

Last updated: July 27, 2026

I want to be honest with you, because this topic deserves truthfulness more than it deserves a polished statement.

Here's the tension I live in:

• The training of these large language models was built on stolen work — every writer, researcher, and creative whose copyrighted work fed these machines should have been asked, and should have been paid. That's theft, and I don't pretend otherwise.

• And yet I still use these AI tools in my business every day. Two true things at once. I'd rather tell you that plainly than pretend I've resolved a contradiction I haven't.

So here is exactly where the line is, what I do, and what I believe.

The bright line: my fiction is 100% human

This is the part that matters most, so I'll say it clearly.

• Every book I write — including Thread Traveller — is written entirely by me. The imagination, the emotion, the sentences, the story: mine.

• My blog posts and the voice of this website are my own words.

• My covers are designed by human designers. My manuscripts are edited by human editors. The creative calls are mine, made with real people.

AI does not write my stories, and it never will. The thinking is the writing. If I handed that off, there'd be no point in doing it at all.

What I actually use AI For

I have a brain that's brilliant at big-picture ideas and genuinely bad at holding a hundred small details in a row. AI has become a kind of second brain for the executive-function stuff — the organizing, remembering, and connecting that used to fall through the cracks.

In practice, that looks like:

• Managing my inbox, scheduling, and project timelines

• Marketing and background research

• General administrative support

• Editing and tightening my newsletters (I write them; Claude helps me clean them up)

The tools in that mix include ProWriting Aid, Kit, Canva, and Descript. It's the business back office — never the creative front room.

Why I Call It Pattern Recognition

I don't really think of AI as "intelligence." These systems recognize patterns at enormous scale; they don't think, and they don't imagine. Calling it Pattern Recognition keeps me honest about what it is and what it isn't — a very capable tool, not a mind, and definitely not a storyteller.

The Parts I Won’t Gloss Over

• The environmental cost is real. Like the technological waves before it, this one has a footprint. We’re already reliant on data centres for Netflix, our email, the whole internet! I'm watching it, not ignoring it.

• I reject the fear-marketing. "You'll get left behind if you don't use AI" is FOMO garbage designed to sell you something. How much or how little you use these tools is your call, and it's a legitimate one either way.

What this means for you

• The fiction you read from me is entirely, unambiguously human.

• My newsletters are written by me, with light editing help.

• The voice you hear here is mine.

• AI stays where it belongs: the operational side of a one-person business.

And I reserve the right to keep thinking about all of this. My understanding is evolving, the technology is evolving, and if my view changes I'll update this page rather than pretend I always knew.

Questions?

I'm a real person and I'm happy to talk about any of this. Reach me at hello @ annabelyouens.com