How funders treat AI in grant applications
Can I use AI to help write a grant application?
Usually yes, and the rules differ by funder. NIH will not treat an application substantially developed by AI as the applicant's original ideas, and it caps each principal investigator at six applications a year. NSF allows AI help, encourages you to say how you used it, and holds you responsible for accuracy. Most private foundations have not decided yet. Check the announcement and the funder's website for an AI rule before you start.
Last reviewed October 2, 2026.
Where major funders stand
- National Institutes of Health
- Notice NOT-OD-25-132 says NIH will not consider applications that are substantially developed by AI, or that contain sections substantially developed by AI, to be the applicant's original ideas. It accepts that AI tools may help with limited aspects of preparation. It also limits each principal investigator to six new, renewal, resubmission or revision applications a year.
- National Science Foundation
- NSF's notice to the research community encourages proposers to say in the project description whether and how they used generative AI. The proposer stays responsible for the accuracy and authenticity of everything submitted.
- Private foundations
- In a 2024 Candid survey, two in three foundations were still undecided about AI-generated applications. Where a foundation has decided, the rule is usually on its website or in its guidelines.
- Other federal agencies
- Many have published no agency-wide rule. Read each announcement, because a rule can appear in a single solicitation.
Using AI inside the rules
Check the rule first
Look in the announcement, the funder's guidelines and its website before you draft anything.
Keep the ideas yours
The program design, the evidence and the aims are what a reviewer funds. Build the draft from your own documents and data.
Verify every claim
Check each figure and citation against its source. AI tools can produce references that do not exist.
Keep a note of what you used it for
If a funder asks, you can answer in two sentences. Here is what to say.
Where Quillify fits
Quillify drafts from your own documents and shows you, at every step, what is still yours to do. Finding funders, checking eligibility and building the requirements checklist involve no writing at all, so they fit every funder's rules. For an NIH application, use those steps and write the research strategy in your own words.
Who asks this most
The answer above is the same whoever you are. What Quillify does about it is not.
Related
- Using AI on an NIH applicationCan I use AI on an NIH grant application?
- What to say when a funder asks how you used AIHow do I disclose AI use in a grant application?
- Will a funder know if I used AI?Will a funder know if I used AI on my grant application?
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