Online publishing platform Medium on Monday launched a new app called TK that aims to further integrate AI technology into the writing process. The idea behind TK is to make it easier to translate ideas into written words by building an AI assistant into the editor itself, allowing users to ask for help by typing “@TK” followed by a request or prompt.
In publishing and journalism, the term “TK” acts as a placeholder used to mark where missing information can be added later. “TK” stands for “to Come,” but since there are very few English words with the “tk” letter combination, “K” is used instead of “C” to make it more prominent in the document for proofreaders to find.
On Medium’s app, TK takes on a new role of helping users fill in the blanks.
The company suggests that its AI assistant could help answer questions that you would normally have to switch to another tab to quickly look up, such as how many days are in a particular month. The app can also bring in portions of writing you previously saved to the app as you flesh out your ideas.
Additionally, Medium says that TK has special skills built in to help make drafts fit the Medium publication’s style guide, including editorial feedback and headline feedback.
As the publishing and literary worlds have considered the role artificial intelligence has played in the creation of new long-form prose, Medium’s move to embrace AI in the early stages of writing could be controversial. Several authors have lost book contracts after being accused of using AI technology in their writing, and other literary awards have also come under intense scrutiny after winners were suspected of having written with AI assistance.
Writers have long used automated tools for proofreading and quick grammar edits, but there is growing concern across the publishing industry that the editing “suggestions” from AI assistants could end up becoming the writing itself, rather than reflecting the thoughts in the writer’s own mind.
However, since AI models are trained on human writing, there are also questions about the reliability of AI detection tools in terms of their ability to properly determine when something was written by AI without the help of AI and when it was not used at all.
TK leans toward this argument, taking the side that ultimately these nuances no longer matter. Instead, the company celebrates what AI brings to the world of writing, stating that “artificial intelligence will make writing more important, not less,” and declaring that “AI is a technology that has the power to amplify human intelligence, using the written word as its foundation.”
Still, Medium acknowledges that AI increases the likelihood of low-quality content, blurring the line between what is written by humans and what is written by AI. To address these concerns, TK allows authors to publish notes that clearly explain how AI was used in their writing.
“This is the beginning of what we believe is needed in AI-era publishing: making the provenance of writing clear, transparent, and testable, right down to the prompts and source material,” Medium explained in a blog post about the launch.
In addition to writing assistance, TK helps users remember and organize what they’ve written before, and suggests writing prompts. The app can also optionally connect to its own AI agent via TK’s MCP server or Claude skill, allowing the app to better understand projects, positions, and other ideas that may be stored in the agent’s memory.
Meanwhile, the company says the new app has human feedback built into its social layer, allowing writers to share early drafts with others to get feedback.
According to Medium, TK will be available on the web at launch, but a desktop app is also on the roadmap. Although the app can import and export Markdown, it is not itself a Markdown app. Because the app is designed for collaboration, writes in TK are also not encrypted, but users can set access control permissions for their work.
Profitable Medium says TK will be a free tool for anyone with a Medium account.
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