A client recently asked me to sign a certification stating that no part of their grant application involved AI. As soon as I read it, my stomach tightened.

My unease comes from knowing that signing that certification with confidence is a lot more complicated than the form makes it look and will become increasingly challenging to promise. 

These certifications deserve more conversation than they're getting. The intent behind them is reasonable. The implementation is creating problems that funders may not fully understand.

Let’s level set:

• Funder AI certifications have grown more common in the last year; I’d never seen one before 2026.

• The tools to enforce this are unreliable.

• False positives in AI detection tools are widespread and well-documented. As I read recently on LinkedIn, someone’s essay on " The Yellow Wallpaper” from high school English class back in the ‘90s gets flagged as AI generated. So do my standard grant narratives pre-2023.  

• Grant writers may unknowingly sign inaccurate certifications when clients use AI upstream. (Think: that really nice program description the program manager sent you or the annual report that you pulled language from? Could absolutely, and increasingly, so, be generated by AI). 

• The field lacks a shared definition of "AI use," making honest answers difficult. Are editing tools with AI built in “AI use”? What about using AI to order your citations? Or review your draft and help you improve it? Or create your logic model from your narrative?