Who made it matters: TraceHumanity sets out to preserve the human story behind digital art
10 October 2026 — An illustration can carry years of practice, a photographer’s judgement and timing, or a designer’s response to a particular person and place. Online, that work often arrives as a single image, separated from the decisions and the person that made it possible. Generative AI makes that missing context more consequential.
TraceHumanity, operated by Guided Intelligence Pty Ltd, is building a register of creative works and their supporting evidence to help people understand how a work was made and what has been checked. Its mission is to give human creativity a more accountable place in a digital culture increasingly filled with images whose origins are unclear.
The stakes are personal
For working artists, questions about AI reach beyond aesthetics. They concern commissions, credit, consent and whether a lifetime spent developing a practice will still be valued. In its January 2024 survey of 787 respondents across author professions, the Society of Authors found that 26% of the illustrators who responded reported losing work to generative AI. That is a finding about those respondents, not a measure of every artist’s experience.
Audiences and commissioners also need a clearer basis for their choices. Someone buying a print, commissioning an illustration or licensing a photograph may care deeply about who made it. A finished image alone rarely gives them the whole account.
A record of the work behind the work
TraceHumanity lets creators bring together a work, their account of its creation and supporting material such as original files, progress images and creation records. Its verification levels distinguish a creator’s declaration from evidence review and more demanding checks. When a certificate is issued, the signed record identifies the review outcome so another person can examine what it means.
This gives creators a structured way to present their process, and gives people assessing a work more to consider than an unsupported label. The purpose is to make the basis of a claim inspectable. It does not make every claim certain, and an artist’s work does not become less human because they have no certificate.
Why this matters beyond one platform
The value of art includes the relationship between a work and the person who made it: their experience, choices and point of view. Preserving that relationship helps audiences make informed choices and helps institutions describe the work they collect, publish or license with greater care.
TraceHumanity’s long-term aim is for evidence about creative origins to be useful wherever a work is encountered. Building the register and developing services for institutions and API users are steps towards that aim. Widespread adoption and institutional partnerships are ambitions, not achievements being claimed today.
The platform invites artists, illustrators, photographers and organisations to examine its approach and help shape what useful evidence looks like in real creative practice. A freely accessible process-preservation checklist offers a starting point, including for people who never register. Creators can submit their first three works without a payment card; the evidence requirements still apply.
Explore the process-preservation checklist ↗