The Tables Turn: When Clients Are the Ones Misusing AI

AI Rounds · Aug 6, 2026 · 26m

We spend a lot of time talking about how writers can use AI responsibly — but the conversation goes both ways.

This week we get into two recent run-ins where clients and companies were the ones using AI badly: RFPs landing in our inboxes with made-up citations and references that are half wrong, and a prospective client who fed a copyrighted writing sample into ChatGPT, then questioned the work based on what the bot said.

We talk about why hallucinated references are inexcusable this far into the game, the etiquette of putting someone else's work into an AI tool, the still-unsettled copyright…