How we use artificial intelligence

Insight ADV Ltd uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools at certain stages of our work. We'd rather tell you how and where than leave you to guess. This page covers Insight ADV Ltd and the content on insightadv.it.

Where we use it

• Proofreading drafts. Texts we've written ourselves, read back with the help of AI for rhythm, clarity and consistency.
• Translations between Italian, English and other languages.
• Analysis: summarising documents, comparing sources, preliminary research.
• Code: debugging and reviewing scripts.
• Images, following the rules in the dedicated section below.

Who's answerable for what

AI suggests; people decide. Every text we publish gets a proper edit, not just a spelling check. Before publication, we verify data and sources: a figure without a verifiable source doesn't make it into the article.

Translations into Italian and English are reviewed by a person. For other languages, we use several translation tools to cross-check. We read and check any code changes before they go live.

Editorial responsibility for everything we publish rests with Insight ADV Ltd, in the person of its creative director and director, Umberto Mazza.

Images

The images on this site come from three sources, and we declare all of them.

1. Our own photographs

When an image is a photograph we took ourselves, it's a real photograph. If we alter it substantially with AI, we say so.

2. AI-generated images

• We use them to illustrate concepts and scenes, and we treat them as illustrations, not documentation.
• Where our creative director appears, the image is generated from one of his photographs and with his consent.
• Scenes with fictional characters, such as our case studies, are stated as such in the text.
• We put a visible caption under any image that could pass for a real photograph. At the bottom of the article, a note covers all the others.
• We leave provenance metadata intact (the C2PA standard, which records how a file was created) when we optimise images.
• Before using a tool, we check that its terms of use allow commercial use.
• We also use AI to upscale and improve the resolution of photographs. These tools reconstruct details that weren't in the original: when the intervention changes the image substantially, we say so.

3. Stock images

We've written about this openly in the article ‘The infinite catalogue: how AI rewrote stock photography and why I stopped paying for it’: we've stopped paying for traditional stock catalogues. These days we have a subscription to Magnific (formerly Freepik), a platform that brings together an archive of licensed images and AI tools for generating and enhancing images. We use it to: download stock images / generate images / upscale and improve photographs.

When we use stock images, from this platform or any other:

• we only take them from official platforms, never from general image searches;
• we check the licence, author and commercial-use terms of every single image, and we credit the author wherever the licence requires it;
• we keep a dated copy of the licence and never strip the metadata;
• we tell photographs apart from the AI-generated images found in the same archives: the latter are treated as under point 2;
• we avoid recognisable people and brands;
• we don't use stock images to represent clients, collaborators, reviews or testimonials.

We only publish client images with their written consent.

What we don't do

• We don't publish reviews, testimonials or quotes generated with AI.
• We don't depict real people other than ourselves without their consent.
• We don't enter passwords, access keys or the personal data of clients and readers into AI tools.

Personal data

How we handle personal data is set out in the privacy notice. This page doesn't replace it.

Reporting a problem

If you spot a mistake or have doubts about the use of AI in any piece of content, drop us a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Last updated: 29 September 2026.

Insight ADV Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, no. 14555148. Registered office: 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX.