Effective Date: July 18, 2025
Interesting times are afoot! Which is why, unorthodox as it is, we wanted to be transparent about how we are using artificial intelligence, or AI, or any of the widespread chatbots throughout our site. Outlined below is how we approach this technology and generative AI.
Our editorial content is almost wholly conceived, written, and reviewed by real people-not machines. We do not use AI-generated content to produce original articles, recommendations, or reviews. Map Happy also legally requires our contractors to not use AI in the work they produce for us.
Fundamentally, at our company, we believe meaningful writing requires human experience, context, and judgment.
Editorial Integrity and AI Use
At Map Happy, we do not use AI to:
- Make editorial decisions
- Generate or draft articles
- Create images or media presented as original creative work
AI-assisted tools-such as grammar suggestions, SEO metadata support, or code formatting-are used strictly on a non-editorial, support-only basis and are subject to human review. We do use it on occasion to generate headline suggestions, email copy, social media captions and create infographics on the research and facts we've collected.
On occasion, we may use AI to edit original content, i.e. clean up visual artifacts in a photo or video or to improve a sentence.
All of this is double-checked by a human.
Over 95% of our content is originally produced. In the case something has been generated by AI by more than 20%, we will flag it as tweaked or edited by AI.
Copyright and Intellectual Property
As a content creator and a media publication, we recognize that AI-generated content raises significant questions about copyright ownership, originality, and content authenticity.
In many cases, we have been the recipient of having our content taking for LLM training without our permission. We believe in fair compensation and the right to exercise our authority in regard to our owned work, and thus we support all creative and commercial licensing and attribution efforts related to AI.
To avoid any ambiguity: All produced content published by Map Happy is authored by a human and qualifies as original work under U.S. copyright law.
AI Detection Tools
We reserve the right to use AI-detection tools to screen all content submissions-including guest posts, freelance pitches, or user-generated content-to ensure compliance with our editorial standards.
Submissions found to contain AI-generated material without disclosure will be rejected or removed.
Every writer, photographer and videographer that works for us is subject to a non-negotiable clause in their contractor agreement that forbids the use of generative AI in the work they produce for Map Happy.
Our Commitment
Map Happy is committed to responsible technology use, transparent editorial practices, and protecting the integrity of human creativity. For questions or concerns regarding our AI policy or content ownership, please contact us at [legal [at] maphappy.com].
