Medium introduces TK AI writing assistant with disclosure notes
Medium launches TK for AI-assisted writing
Medium has launched TK, a web-based writing app that places an AI assistant directly inside the editor. The tool is free for people with a Medium account and is designed to help users turn ideas into text without leaving the writing environment.
Writers can call the assistant by entering “@TK” followed by a request. Medium says it can answer simple questions, surface material a user previously saved in the app, suggest prompts, and provide editorial and headline feedback. TK will also include skills intended to match a draft to the style guide of Medium publications.
The product name draws on the publishing and journalism convention of using “TK” as a placeholder for information to be supplied later. In the app, Medium repurposes that idea: TK is meant to help writers fill gaps while a draft is still taking shape.
Transparency is part of the publishing model
Medium is introducing TK amid continued concern in publishing and literary circles about the boundary between AI assistance and AI-generated prose. The company recognises risks of low-quality content and uncertainty over whether work is human-written or AI-written.
To address that issue, TK enables authors to publish notes explaining how AI was used in a piece of writing. Medium describes this as a step toward making the provenance of writing transparent and inspectable, including the prompts and source material involved.
The company argues that AI makes writing more important rather than less important, framing the technology as a way to amplify human intelligence. At the same time, the launch highlights the practical difficulty of judging authorship solely through AI-detection tools, given that AI models are trained on human-written material.
Collaboration and agent connections
TK includes a social layer through which writers can share early drafts and seek human feedback. It can optionally connect to a user’s own AI agent through TK’s MCP server or Claude skill, allowing the app to use project details, positions, and ideas held in that agent’s memory.
The app can import and export Markdown, although Medium says it is not itself a Markdown app. Writing stored in TK is not encrypted because the product is designed for collaboration, but users will be able to set access-control permissions for their work. Medium says a desktop application is planned after the web launch.
For businesses adopting AI-assisted drafting, TK’s model underlines the need to decide in advance which material may be shared with an assistant, who can access collaborative drafts, and how AI involvement will be disclosed when work is published.