How to prove your writing isn’t AI-generated with Grammarly’s free new tool

AI is everywhere. It can be problematic for students, professionals, and everyone in between because it’s hard to prove what was written by AI – and what wasn’t.

That could cause serious problems. 

Also: My two favorite AI apps on Linux – and how I use them to get more done

That confusion could be intensified when your words are used to train AI. Who’s to say someone might use generative AI to write a paper, only to find your words were used in the process?

You can see how that could spiral out of control, right?

How do you avoid it?

If you use Google Docs or MS Office and Grammarly, there’s a new feature that could be of assistance. That feature is called Track Your Work, and it’s now built right into Grammarly. Even better, the feature is available in the free Grammarly account. 

What does Track Your Work do?

Essentially, this feature automatically records proof of your writing activity for all new Google and Word Docs. It’s important to understand that this feature is only for new documents. If you open a document that has already been written, you cannot enable the feature because, well, that document has already been written or is in the process of being written.

This feature is a part of Grammarly Authorship, which enables you to demonstrate your sources of text in either a Google Doc or Microsoft Word document. Once you enable the feature, Authorship tracks your writing process and automatically categorizes the source of text as you type.

It’s simple to use and should be considered a must for anyone who wants to always have proof that they are the author of a document.

Also: How I feed my files to a local AI for better, more relevant responses

How to use Grammarly Authorship

What you’ll need: To use Grammarly Authorship, you’ll need a Grammarly account (you can use the free version) and either a new Google or MS Word document. One factor to keep in mind is that this only works within your web browser, so you can’t use Authorship if you’re working with MS Office locally installed.

As I mentioned, this is a key step. You have to open a brand new Google or Office document; otherwise, Authorship won’t work. 

Show more

Once you’ve enabled the feature, a See The Report button appears. You can click that button at any time to view the report.

I decided to pull a fast one on Grammarly and copy and paste this document into a new document that had Track Your Work enabled. Lo and behold, the work came up as 100% copied.

Also: How to run DeepSeek AI locally to protect your privacy – 2 easy ways

I then deleted the copied text and typed a sentence to see how Grammarly would react. A quick click on the Report button and Grammarly informed me that the content was all fresh and new.

Huzzah.

But what can you do with that report?

Also: How I made Perplexity AI the default search engine in my browser (and why you should too)

If you click the “Share report” button, a new pop-up appears. Click the On/Off slider until it’s in the On position, and you’ll be presented with a link you can copy and share with anyone who needs to know that your work was 100% you. Send that link to your teacher, boss, editor, publisher, or whoever needs to know that you didn’t use AI to create your document.

And that’s all there is to proving that you are the one true author of whatever document it is that you created.