How to review an AI-assisted article before publication

Before approving an AI-assisted article, write down what you are approving: its answer, its supporting evidence, its examples, and its publication details. Our proposed workflow starts with a draft and ends with a recorded editorial decision. Use it for a practical guide, an explanatory article, or a small collection of related pages.

Google recommends manually checking facts and reviewing AI-generated content before publication. Its guidance also explains that generative AI output may contain inaccuracies. Google's guidance on generative AI content.

The workflow below is our editorial proposal. It does not promise a ranking, a traffic increase, or a measurable productivity gain. Treat the templates as conventions you can adapt. For the worked example, imagine reviewing a guide about organizing research notes. This is a hypothetical assignment, with no customer story or performance result attached.

Define the decision the article should support

Our proposed first step is to write a one-sentence acceptance brief: “After reading this guide, the reader should be able to prepare a research-note template using the supplied example.” Add the intended audience and starting materials. Decide whether the reader is choosing a method, following instructions, or understanding a concept.

Next, name the boundaries. For the example assignment, exclude software pricing, product comparisons, and claims about hours saved. Request one sample note, one sequence of actions, and a short explanation of the fields. If the draft introduces another task, mark that passage for an explicit scope decision rather than quietly accepting the expansion.

Use the brief to review the opening paragraph. Ask whether it names the intended task and offers the promised answer. In our convention, an introduction should not require a promotional claim to justify the article. Replace a promise such as “transform your research” with a concrete instruction about the template the reader will prepare.

Write down what would make you reject the draft. Possible editorial rejection conditions include an unsupported product claim, an unlabeled fictional example, or a missing step in the proposed procedure. Choose conditions that match the assignment. Do not import an unrelated checklist simply because it has more items.

Check individual assertions against their evidence

Google describes generative AI as potentially useful for researching a topic and adding structure to original content. It also warns that generating many pages without adding value for users may violate its scaled content abuse policy. Google's guidance on generative AI content.

Our proposed evidence review uses a ledger with four fields: the exact assertion, the supporting source, the relevant passage, and the editorial decision. Work at sentence level. If one sentence contains a feature claim and an outcome claim, review each part separately. Ask for a source that supports the whole retained assertion.

For the research-note example, consider the draft sentence “This template organizes your references and makes your team faster.” Under our convention, the proposed template can be described as an editorial example. The statement about team speed needs its own evidence before approval. Without that evidence, remove the outcome claim and explain how to fill in the fields instead.

Preserve the strength and scope of the source wording when you paraphrase. If a document describes a possibility, retain that qualification. If it discusses one setting, keep the assertion within that setting. We propose marking a sentence “supported,” “needs evidence,” or “remove or narrow.” These labels are review decisions, not ratings of the source's general reputation.

Do not approve a paragraph merely because its final sentence has a link. In our workflow, assign support to every factual assertion you retain. Then read the paragraph again for unsupported connections between those assertions. If you want to add an interpretation, label it as your interpretation and keep it within the available evidence.

Keep recommendations visibly editorial

Google's content self-assessment questions address original information or analysis, clear sourcing, descriptive titles, and additional value beyond copying or rewriting other sources. The same document states that Google does not have a preferred word count. Google's guidance on helpful content.

Our proposed convention separates sourced descriptions from editorial instructions. “We propose recording unresolved questions beside the draft” is an instruction from us. Leave it in that form. Do not append an unsupported explanation that it eliminates errors or guarantees a successful publication.

Apply the same convention to examples. Introduce the sample research note as a fictional exercise. Give it a question, a source field, a quotation field, and a field for your own interpretation. Ask the writer to distinguish the quoted passage from the proposed summary. Avoid inventing a customer name, testimonial, or numerical result to make the example appear tested.

For article length, use the assignment's requirements and your editorial judgment. Our proposal is to expand with a worked example, a decision rule, or a clarified instruction when those additions serve the brief. Mark repeated introductions and repeated conclusions for removal. Do not describe your chosen length as a search engine requirement.

Send a bounded revision request

Our proposed revision request should identify the passage, the required change, and the condition for acceptance. For example: “In the second section, remove the unsupported claim about team speed. Keep the template as our proposed example. Add instructions for completing each field, and list any question that cannot be answered from the supplied material.”

Request a separate list of unresolved questions alongside the revised draft. Use that list to decide whether to obtain another source, narrow the scope, or remove a passage. Do not ask the writer to fill every gap with a plausible explanation. Under our convention, a visible unresolved item is an acceptable intermediate result.

Compare the revision with your acceptance brief. Review any newly introduced assertion, even when it appears in a paragraph you previously approved. Then check the procedure by following it on paper with the hypothetical example. Record ambiguous instructions as editing tasks. This is our proposed review exercise, not a claim that the procedure has been tested with users.

Before moving on, assign a decision to each remaining issue. Use “approve,” “revise,” or “omit,” and write a short reason. If you accept a recommendation, approve it as a recommendation. If you accept a factual statement, preserve its source assignment. Keep those decisions with the article materials.

Give each language edition its own review

Google recommends separate URLs for language versions and hreflang annotations to identify the appropriate versions. It determines a page's language from visible content and advises against automatically redirecting people between language versions based on an assumed language preference. Google's guidance on multilingual sites.

Our proposed English review should independently approve the opening question, terminology, example, and section order. For this article, we chose to start with publication approval. A Polish companion may begin with how to formulate the assignment. Do not require identical paragraph counts as an editorial acceptance condition.

Prepare a short terminology sheet for the English edition. Decide whether to use “brief,” “assignment,” or “acceptance criteria” in each context. Approve the wording in the body, diagrams, captions, and call to action together. For any regional example, either source the relevant details or keep the example explicitly hypothetical.

Review the evidence ledger for each edition separately. If a localized sentence introduces a stronger promise than the approved assertion, narrow it. If a local example introduces a new factual detail, request support for that detail. Our proposed rule is to approve the actual published wording, rather than treating approval of another edition as automatic approval.

Review the publication package

Google's recommendation to review AI-generated material also covers title elements, meta descriptions, structured data, and image alternative text. Google's guidance on generative AI content.

Our proposed final pass includes the headline, excerpt, metadata, visual captions, links, and call to action. Read these elements without the body. Ask whether they describe the approved scope or introduce a new promise. For each visual, decide whether it presents sourced information or our proposed process, and label it accordingly.

Keep a compact handoff record: approved draft, source ledger, resolved questions, and remaining editorial limitations. Assign responsibility for the publication decision within your own team. Choose a review schedule appropriate to the subject, without changing a page's date merely to imply new research.

The Max AI registration page describes the service as an “Operating system for AI agents” and includes English among its language options. Max AI registration page. Our suggested next action is to prepare your acceptance brief and evidence ledger. If you want to begin using the service, visit registration, and use those materials to frame the task you intend to ask an agent.