How should ghostwriting, authorship, AI, and approval work?

Treat ghostwriting as attributed collaboration. The executive supplies the substantive judgment and relevant experience; writers research, challenge, structure, draft, and edit it. Identify the people and AI systems involved, follow the destination's rules, preserve sources and approvals, and keep final accountability with the named executive.

Named authorship requires substantive executive contribution

Define the executive input before setting an output quota. A repeatable process may include interviews, source material, research questions, fact owners, counterevidence, and personal or company boundaries. The executive should contribute or validate the central judgment, understand the reasoning, review attributed language, and decide whether the finished work represents their view.

A final approval alone provides little evidence of substantive contribution when the executive did not participate in developing the idea. Ask a prospective provider to show how interviews, evidence, edits, and approval connect in a redacted example. Use voice capture and work samples to inspect that provenance.

Destination rules determine disclosure and eligibility

Obtain the current rules for the outlet, conference, award, platform, profession, or employer before drafting or submission. Record requirements for authorship, originality, prior publication, ghostwriting, conflicts, citations, and AI use. Save any representation the executive or provider makes about those subjects.

Company-controlled publishing, independent editorial selection, and sponsored placement may impose different terms. Editorial acceptance does not resolve the executive's accountability for unsupported claims, and payment does not remove applicable disclosure duties.

The PRSA Code of Ethics calls for accurate information, correction of errors, and protection of confidential information. Apply those standards to research, quotations, citations, biographies, and claims whether or not the provider belongs to PRSA.

AI requires an approved data and verification boundary

Require the provider to list each AI system, use case, account type, data location, retention rule, training setting, subprocessor, and human reviewer. Prohibit entry of interviews, personal data, material nonpublic information, credentials, privileged advice, or restricted third-party material unless the authorized risk owner has approved that system and use.

NIST's July 2024 Generative AI Profile identifies risks including confabulation, data privacy, information security, harmful bias, and intellectual property. Require human source verification and relevant rights, privacy, bias, and safety review. Trace consequential claims to evidence rather than citing an AI output as the source.

Rights depend on contribution, contracts, and destination terms

The U.S. Copyright Office's January 2025 copyrightability report says AI-assisted work can be copyrightable for sufficient human contributions, while prompts alone do not provide enough control under current generally available technology to make the user the author of the output. That is a U.S. copyright analysis; other rights and jurisdictions may differ.

The contract should allocate rights in interviews, recordings, source material, research, drafts, edits, final work, and reuse. Also review publisher licenses, provider portfolio rights, third-party material, and return or deletion at exit. Payment for the work does not by itself resolve ownership of an executive's identity, preexisting ideas, or personal account. Use qualified counsel for consequential rights questions.

Approval must identify four separate decisions

Give reviewers the final text, evidence for new claims, AI or third-party disclosures, changes since the prior version, destination, and deadline. Separate four decisions when needed: executive adoption, factual approval, legal or compliance clearance, and permission to publish.

The executive approves attributed judgment and personal boundaries. The company approves official facts, confidential information, policy, and regulated claims. The payer approves scope and rights. The program manager owns versions, deadlines, routing, and the publication record. An expired window should not count as approval unless the authorized parties expressly adopted that rule.

Set a reapproval threshold for material publisher edits, changed claims, a new destination, or delayed publication. Name who can pause scheduled work, request a correction, preserve records, and notify affected stakeholders. Put the workflow into executive-company decision rights and the scope of work.