Our principles
- Truth and accuracy: we report what we can verify and say what we cannot.
- Independence: we decide what to cover and what to conclude, free of pressure from companies, advertisers or our owner.
- Fairness: we treat the people and companies we cover fairly and give them a chance to respond to significant criticism.
- Transparency: we explain how we work, how we make money and how we use AI.
- Accountability: we put our names to our work and correct our mistakes.
Conflicts of interest
Writers and editors must disclose to the editor-in-chief any interest that could affect, or appear to affect, their coverage, including:
- a job, contract or consultancy with a company they cover,
- shares, tokens or other investments in a company they cover (beyond broad index funds),
- a close personal relationship with someone at a company they cover.
Where a conflict exists, another writer takes the story, or the interest is disclosed in the article. Several of our writers work in engineering, research and sustainability alongside writing for us; they do not write about their own employers or clients.
Gifts, travel and review products
- We do not accept payment, gifts of more than token value, or travel in exchange for coverage.
- We may accept free trial accounts or review access so we can test products. This never guarantees coverage or a favourable verdict, and we disclose it in the review.
- Products sent for review are returned, given away or donated, not sold for personal profit.
Advertising and commercial relationships
Advertisers, sponsors and affiliate partners cannot buy coverage, review placement or scores, and they do not see articles before publication. Sponsored content is clearly labelled. See our advertising and affiliate disclosure.
Treatment of people
- We do not misrepresent who we are to obtain information, except in rare public-interest cases approved by the editor-in-chief.
- We respect privacy and do not publish private personal information without a clear public interest.
- We take particular care with stories involving children and vulnerable people.
- We do not publish content that harasses, demeans or discriminates against people.
AI and authenticity
We never use AI to invent quotes, sources, testimonials, reviews, test results or writers, and we never present AI-generated images as real photographs. See our AI use policy.
Plagiarism and originality
We do not copy other people’s work. We credit and link to reporting we build on, and we quote only short passages with attribution. Writers who plagiarise will not write for us again.
Breaches of this policy
Report a concern about our ethics to hello@the-ai-future.com with "Ethics" in the subject. The editor-in-chief investigates every report, and we correct or update articles when a breach affected them.