Emboss is an optional authorship tool that lets you share work history metrics showing the process behind a document or draft: number of sessions, revisions, typing speed, pauses, version history snapshots, and other metrics recorded as the document is written.
Emboss is not an AI detector—it does not scan finished writing and assume authorship. It does not produce a suspicion score, and it doesn’t evaluate writing quality. With Emboss, we want to move the conversation away from AI-suspicion—accusations and detectors—and toward process as a defense against these, letting the writer choose to share their work history to protect their work from accusations of this kind.
Emboss is fully opt-in, private by default, and controlled by the writer. Not every writer will use Emboss, and not every writer should have to use Emboss. A writer can choose not to share their process for reasons of privacy, access, or any other preference.
No AI is used in the compiling of these metrics.
Why Ellipsus made Emboss, and its use case
Emboss was shaped by 3,000+ survey responses (Ellipsus's paid plan survey, March 2026) and users requesting better ways to show the human process behind a piece of writing. (In our survey on potential Plus features, “AI-Safety: Proof that your writing was human-authored” was the third most-voted feature to include in a possible paid plan, after #1 “Supporting Ellipsus and helping keep it sustainable”, and #2 “Writing Insights”. #4 was Custom themes.)
For context—this is a growing issue: writers (especially within our own community) already face false accusations of AI use, institutional use of unreliable “AI detectors,” and broader issues of trust around human-made work.
A feature like Emboss has been one of our top goals for several years now, in response to recognizing the issues that AI generated content would pose to online spaces, the publishing industry, and education.
We feel that the rise of AI in creative spaces, and what that means for writers, is one of the biggest challenges facing writers today.
No platform can fully control how communities, readers, institutions, and creative spaces interpret the absence of a record of provenance (especially in the age of AI). But we can be very clear about our own stance: not using Emboss should never be treated as suspicious.
How to use Emboss
From the Share and export panel on the right sidebar, click on Reader link.
From there, open the Emboss your work section.
Toggle on the components of Emboss you want to share in your Reader link.
Readers will see an Emboss badge at the top bar of the Reader, and expandable views for the features you chose to share.
Note: The current Writing Journey metrics are free for all Ellipsus users. However, shareable public version history is only available via Ellipsus Plus.
To use specific features...
Important to know
Emboss uses document activity information that already exists as part of how Ellipsus saves, syncs, records, and creates versions of your work. All metrics are derived from words typed over time.
For example, Active writing time is based on keystrokes. Words typed per minute is calculated from words added over active writing time. Thinking pauses (which are measured in seconds) are calculated from gaps between active writing periods. Total edits are based on document changes committed during the writing process.
Since these metrics are attached to your document or draft, they are stored locally on your browser, and encrypted-at-rest in our servers.
Emboss doesn’t “scan” your prose to decide whether it sounds human, or judge it on any metric not listed above. It does not determine whether your work is AI-generated or not. It displays process signals from the document’s creation history.
Additionally, imported work and older documents written/including writing from before Emboss debuted may not display every metric. Emboss draws on existing edit and version history, but several metrics for the components of Emboss only started recording when the feature was introduced (on June 10, 2026).
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