AI Is Changing How Writers Write, But Not Why They Write

The role writing plays in our lives is changing dramatically. The arrival of AI tools has fundamentally altered how we understand the act of writing and how we interpret the words we consume.

Medium recently released its 2026 report on The State of Writing, examining several categories of writing and the growing impact of AI.

Interestingly, the report found that earning money is not the primary motivation, even for people who publish their work publicly.

Only 12% of respondents write to earn money, significantly fewer than those who write for self-expression (56%) or self-care (41%).

Visibility May Mean More Than Money

Even among the 43% who publish their writing publicly and are presumably more interested in visibility, only 29% are paid for their work.

So why do writers publish publicly if making money is not their primary goal?

For some, the value lies in the other opportunities their writing may create. Sixteen percent write to build influence or reach an audience, while 12% write for career advancement or greater professional visibility.

But professional visibility still doesn’t explain why so many people write things they never intend to publish at all.

According to the report, only 25% of the general public shares writing publicly at least once a month. Most writing remains private. It lives in journals, unfinished stories, notes apps, letters that may never be mailed, and documents nobody else will ever see.

That doesn’t sound like writing is dying to me. It sounds like people still need it, even when nobody is watching.

Writing Helps Us Figure Out What We Think

Sometimes we begin writing because we already know what we want to say. Other times, we write because we don’t have the faintest idea what we think until the words begin appearing in front of us.

That may explain why self-expression and self-care ranked so much higher than money in Medium’s report.

Writing allows us to take a thought out of our heads and examine it from a safer distance. It gives fear, grief, anger, confusion, and even joy somewhere to go. We can rearrange the words, argue with ourselves, delete the parts that aren’t true, and keep going until something finally makes sense.

No reader is required for that process. Neither is a paycheck.

Of course, that doesn’t mean writers don’t want readers. Most of us appreciate knowing that someone, somewhere, has read our words and understood what we were trying to say. Being read can make us feel visible. Being understood can make us feel considerably less alone.

Money is wonderful, too. I'm not going to insult anyone’s intelligence by pretending otherwise.

But payment is only one possible reward for writing.

Sometimes the reward is discovering what you believe. And it's helping another person feel understood. Other times it's preserving a memory that would otherwise disappear.

Then sometimes it's simply getting through a difficult afternoon without throwing something expensive across the room or putting your fist through the nearest wall.

AI Has Created a Strange Trust Problem

The Medium report found that 71% of writers had used AI during the previous three months.

Yet 60% or the writers distrusted writing they had created with AI assistance, while 69% distrusted AI-assisted writing produced by other people.

That is quite a contradiction. It certainly stopped me in my tracts.

Writers are using the tools, but they aren’t entirely comfortable with what they produce. Yes, writers may appreciate the speed and convenience of using tools while still wondering whether something important vanished during the process.

Nearly one-quarter of the writers surveyed said AI had changed their writing voice.

The Most Interesting Finding In The Entire Report

That may be the most interesting finding yet in the entire report.

A writer’s voice develops through years of living, observing, reading, experimenting, making mistakes, and choosing one peculiar word over another. It contains our experiences, rhythm, humor, prejudices, contradictions, and strange little habits.

It's not merely the arrangement of grammatically correct sentences.

AI can imitate a writer's voice and many of their writing qualities. It can clean up an awkward paragraph, suggest a stronger transition, or help a writer escape from a sentence that has been holding them hostage for forty-five minutes.

But if writer's surrender too much of the process, we risk producing something technically competent that no longer sounds like us.

And if readers can no longer tell whether a person genuinely wrestled with the ideas on the page, trust begins to disappear.

We May Need Writing More Than Ever

The flood of AI-generated material has created an odd result. There are more words everywhere, but readers are becoming increasingly suspicious of them.

That makes authentic writing more valuable, not less.

Readers still want to encounter another human mind. They want an opinion shaped by experience, a story that could only have happened to the person telling it, or an observation they have never encountered before.

They want to laugh, argue, learn something, or recognize themselves in somebody else’s life.

AI can generate an acceptable paragraph about grief. It can't have a spouse die, sit through the funeral, return to an empty house, and discover what grief actually does after everyone else has gone home.

Sure, AI can describe fear, betrayal, ambition, illness, love, and survival. But it can't live through any of them.

That is where the writer still matters.

Our lived experiences give the words weight. Our judgment decides which details belong. Our voice tells the reader there is an actual person on the other side of the page.

The Reason We Write Hasn’t Changed

The tools will continue to change, just as they did when writers moved from pencils to typewriters, from typewriters to computers, and from private notebooks to publishing platforms like Workstar capable of reaching readers around the world.

AI is a much larger disruption, and pretending otherwise would be ridiculous. It is changing how writing is produced, how quickly it can be created, how readers evaluate it, and whether they trust what they see.

But Medium’s report suggests that the fundamental desire to write remains remarkably human. That's good news. At least in my opinion.

People write to understand themselves. They write to remember. They write to heal, connect, persuade, teach, entertain, and leave some small evidence that they were here and had something worth saying.

Some will make money from it. Most apparently will not.

Yet they will continue writing anyway.

AI may change the tools we use, the platforms where we publish, and the way our words reach other people. What it can't change is the human need that made us start writing in the first place.