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Now that I have begun publishing A.R.C.H., one topic I have found myself thinking about more and more is the role of AI in creative work.
Partly, this has been prompted by recent marketplace policies surrounding AI-generated content. As someone beginning to publish my first commercial products, I felt it was worth explaining how I actually use AI throughout my workflow.
The short answer is this:
I use AI extensively.
But probably not in the way many people imagine.
Part of the reason is simply practical. At the moment, I am juggling four different professional pursuits: economic research, translation, fiction writing and game publishing. Alongside that, I also volunteer my time as a GM and organise a translation study group. As an economist by training, I have always been conscious of how I spend my time and naturally look for ways to work more efficiently without compromising the quality of the final result.
That is where AI fits into my workflow.
The Ideas Still Come from Me
Every A.R.C.H. product begins with my own ideas.
The setting, investigative framework, mission structure, historical anomalies and product roadmap all originate from my own design work. Before AI becomes involved, I usually already know what I want to say and why I want to say it.
One example comes from A.R.C.H. – Core Operations.
For Core Operations, I first wrote the world premise, the explanation of the Time Line Protectors and the descriptions of the four Protector specialisations in my own words. My initial drafts tended to be dense, analytical and focused on explaining the concepts precisely. AI then helped me rewrite those passages into clearer, more approachable prose while preserving their underlying meaning.
That process reflects where I believe my strengths lie as a writer.
Clarity Over Cleverness
I come from an academic background, and I suspect that has shaped the way I write.
My natural inclination is towards conceptual frameworks, analysis and internal consistency. I enjoy asking how a system functions, how its different parts relate to one another and whether the underlying logic holds together.
That way of thinking has served me well when designing investigation frameworks and roleplaying settings.
It is not always the clearest way to communicate those ideas to someone encountering them for the first time.
For GM-facing products, I see them as technical manuals rather than creative works. Their purpose is to communicate procedures, setting assumptions and investigative frameworks clearly enough that another GM can confidently run them at the table.
If a paragraph communicates the same idea more clearly without changing its meaning, I consider that an improvement. AI has become one of the tools I use to achieve that.
AI Throughout My Workflow
Beyond editing, AI assists with a variety of publishing tasks.
It helps me identify awkward phrasing, improve document structure, brainstorm alternative headings, proofread drafts and discuss ideas as they develop. It has also been useful when planning release schedules, organising my website and thinking through different approaches to presenting information.
These conversations often resemble the sort of discussions I might have with an editor or another designer rather than asking someone else to create the work for me.
What AI Doesn’t Do
AI does not design my settings.
It does not invent my investigative frameworks.
It does not create my historical anomalies or mission structures.
Likewise, every playtest, every revision and every design decision comes from my own logic and intuition as a human, actually running games, observing players and deciding how the system should evolve.
The same is true of this blog. AI may help me improve how I express an idea, but the topics I write about, the opinions I hold and the experiences I describe remain my own.
Looking Ahead
AI will undoubtedly continue to evolve, and so will the conversations surrounding its use in creative work.
For my own workflow, I expect it will remain what it is today: a tool that helps me communicate ideas more clearly and work more efficiently, while leaving the creative direction, design decisions and final judgement firmly in my hands.
At the end of the day, the products I publish reflect my own design philosophy. AI simply helps me present those ideas in a way that is clearer and easier for others to understand.
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