Definitions for Content Creators

At a glance

The threshold: Content must meet VH3 (Human-Led, AI-Assisted) or above to carry the VerifiedHuman mark.
The question: Who produced it? Consider who conceived, developed, and assembled the work.
Production support: AI may help with research, transcription, metadata, SEO suggestions, caption formatting, and scheduling.
AI-generated elements: At VH3, you substantially transform and integrate them into work shaped by your editorial vision. Assembling AI outputs with minor changes does not qualify.
The Replacement Principle: If you replaced every AI-generated element with a placeholder, would the creative vision still hold together?
Uncertain origins: Add AIU (AI-Unknown) when the human or AI origin of source material is unclear.

Essential Production

A video brings together a script, footage, sound, and editing. A newsletter combines writing, images, and design. A podcast may extend into show notes, clips, and a wider campaign.

Content creators conceive the idea, develop its elements, and assemble them into something an audience can experience. Essential production asks who did that creative work.

Who produced it? Or, more simply: Who made this? Apply the question to the finished piece and to the elements within it.

A human producer’s contribution is visible in the work’s point of view, development, selection, pacing, and structure. Those choices give the different elements a shared purpose.

The Replacement Principle

Content brings several elements together. The question is how a human led that production and shaped its creative vision.

If you replaced every AI-generated element with a placeholder, would the creative vision still hold together?

Look for the human contribution that connects the work: strategy, voice, sequencing, emotional arc, and point of view. Would someone watching your process see a person building something, or chiefly approving generated outputs?

A clear human editorial direction should remain when you look past AI’s contribution. If what remains is only prompts and approvals, the work falls below the standard.

Use this gut-check alongside the collaboration levels. At VH3, generated material must still be substantially transformed and integrated into the work.

Did you produce it, or did AI produce it?

When the source is uncertain

Stock assets, template elements, found media, and other components may have an unclear history. You may suspect AI involvement without knowing how much was generated.

When the human or AI origin of material you use is uncertain, add AIU (AI-Unknown) to your VH level, for example, VH4-AIU. The tag identifies that uncertainty. Continue to assess your own production under the standard.

Go deeper.

Open the explanations, examples, and terms you need.

Human production and AI

The human role behind the standard.

Audiences deserve to know who made the content they watch, read, and hear. VerifiedHuman certifies human production through a shared standard and the creator’s commitment to it.

Working across formats means making different kinds of creative decisions. The standard considers how those decisions come together in the whole production, while keeping the contribution of individual elements in view.

Creators are free to experiment with generated material and conceptual work. Membership leaves room for those explorations. Use the mark on content that meets the standard.

Which level describes your work?

From entirely AI-generated to entirely human.

The Human–AI Spectrum has five levels. Content at VH3, VH4, or VH5 qualifies for the VerifiedHuman mark.

VH5 · Entirely Human-Produced

You conceive, develop, and assemble all content elements without generative AI.
Traditional editing, design, audio, publishing, scheduling, and SEO tools are fine.
Your vision, voice, and editorial decisions shape every element.

VH4 · Human-Produced, AI-Enhanced

You conceive, develop, and assemble all content elements.
Generative AI may help with research, transcription, metadata, SEO suggestions, caption formatting, and scheduling optimization.
AI supports production without generating the creative content itself. Your voice and editorial decisions shape the work.

VH3 · Human-Led, AI-Assisted

You lead the content strategy and creative direction.
AI may supply draft copy, image options, or other raw material. You substantially transform and integrate those elements into the finished work.
The result reflects your editorial vision and voice. A collection of AI outputs with minor adjustments does not qualify.
Use the Replacement Principle to examine where the creative direction comes from.

Work below VH3 does not qualify for the VerifiedHuman mark.

See the complete Human–AI Spectrum

Using AI across a production

How the standard applies to AI assistance.

You are responsible for judging whether your work meets the standard. Different elements can sit at different points on the spectrum. Consider both their creative contribution and the production as a whole.

Production support

AI may transcribe footage, format captions, suggest metadata, or help schedule material you created. These tasks can support your work while you supply its ideas, expression, and editorial direction.

Generated copy within human-created work

Suppose AI writes a newsletter’s copy, while you take its photographs and design the layout. Or it writes social captions for a video you filmed and edited yourself.

Ask how much creative weight the generated element carries. Is it incidental production support, or does it supply the piece’s argument, voice, or story? Having created the other elements does not answer that question on its own.

Use the Replacement Principle and the VH3 guidance to assess what you transformed and how you led the whole production.

Assembling generated outputs

Generating text, images, and audio with AI, then assembling them with minor edits, does not meet the standard. Curation alone does not establish the substantial human creative contribution required at VH3.

The question remains: Who produced it?

AI assistance in practice

A closer look at a real creative decision.

A video about sustainable fashion

Alex creates a fifteen-minute video. AI helps research sustainable brands, transcribe the raw footage, suggest search-friendly title options, and generate closed captions.

Alex writes the script, films the footage, designs the thumbnails, and edits the video. Alex also makes the decisions about pacing, tone, and narrative structure.

This is VH4: Human-Produced, AI-Enhanced. AI supported research and technical production. Alex conceived, developed, and assembled the content.

Terms used in the standard

The language used in the commitment.

Content creator: The producer of content.
Content: Text, visuals, audio, video, or design selected and assembled for an audience to experience.
Essentially produced: Produced through a person’s conception, development, and assembly of content elements. The central question is: Who produced it?
Essential content elements: Text, visuals, audio, video, and design used in posts, videos, newsletters, campaigns, podcasts, and other works.
Content generation tools: AI systems that generate text, images, audio, video, or design elements in response to prompts.
Multi-format content: Content that combines two or more media, such as writing and video or audio and visuals, in a single work or campaign.
Standard: A statement of commitment to specific creative practices.
Represent: Claim, present, or share work as your own.
Team: A group of people working together.
Intellectual property: Creative work to which someone has legal rights, such as copyright or trademark.
Essential: The fundamental elements or characteristics of something.
Human: A person, or something originating from a person.
Generative AI: AI systems trained on existing content that generate new text, images, audio, code, or video in response to prompts.
Machine learning: Algorithms that learn from data to make predictions or generate content.
Other generative processes: Other AI or machine-learning processes that create new content.
Artificial intelligence (AI): A field of computer science concerned with systems that perform tasks such as learning, reasoning, and generating content.
AIU (AI-Unknown): A tag added to a VH level when the human or AI origin of source material is uncertain.

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Definitions for other fields

Writers Visual Artists Musicians Voice Actors

Human–AI Spectrum

Definitions forContent Creators