3.6 Artificial intelligence and social work writing

Many social workers and organisations have been thinking about using technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the time it takes to produce written documents. This remains an evolving area of social work. In this course we have already explored the importance of the language used, and the focus required to ensure that professional judgements are communicated clearly and carefully.

AI has ‘emerged as a transformative and disruptive force with potential to reshape social work practice’ (Haider et al., 2025 p. 5) but there are some major ethical and professional issues to consider. Generative AI is being adopted by social workers and organisations to reduce what is perceived as administrative burden. Given the importance of language and nuance in the words we use in social work writing we need to consider the reliability of AI systems and tools. While arguments for the use of AI propose that this enables social workers to focus more fully on relationship-based practice we have explored within this course that social work writing is not a separate activity and it is through written communication and documents that social workers practice.

Haider et al., (2026) summarise some of issues that are vital for social work to consider:

• AI not yet reliable in predicting risk and making decisions
• Nuance and context
• Accountability, transparency and defensible-decision making
• Bias and inequality perpetuated by AI systems and tools
• Sensitivity, security of data and ethics

Social workers still need to use critical analysis within their tasks and formulate records. Social workers still need to engage with the ethical foundations of the profession and careful consideration of the legacy of the written record for people being written about. Developing skills in writing and critical analysis are therefore crucial to learn within the social work career alongside the use of any technology being used.

This section has focused on the details of social work writing in order to think about language at the level of the sentence and even individual words. As you spend more time in practice as a student social worker, try to notice the language that is used. Practice identifying where description, analysis and professional judgements are used within the documents you read and be aware of your own language as you write.

The final part of this section on social work writing will focus on you as the writer and on your readers, and how an awareness of both reader and writer has on writing.