AI and the BIFF Response®
Who Should Write Your Emails, Texts, and Letters?
© 2025 by Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq.
As the Director of Innovation for the High Conflict Institute, it’s my job to develop simple techniques and methods for managing high conflict situations. One of our earliest techniques was the BIFF Response® in 2007, designed to calm hostile and misinformed emails, texts, and letters by keeping responses brief, informative, friendly, and firm. Over time we developed and published four little BIFF books: for everyone, for divorced coparents, for the workplace, and for lawyers. I also developed ten questions that people can ask themselves (or a BIFF coach can ask) about a draft response to see whether it is truly a BIFF or needs some revisions.
Over the years, we estimate that this method is being used by approximately one million people around the world because of widespread sales of our books, trainings of professionals, and the fact that each person who learns the technique tends to teach at least one other person. Now that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is sweeping the globe, it creates a dilemma regarding the BIFF Response, which I address in this article.
Can AI Write a Good BIFF?
Apparently, without asking (or paying), the internet companies that develop AI have scooped up our method and trained themselves in attempting to write BIFF Responses and offering them online. Over the last couple years, students, clients, and colleagues have sent me samples of what AI says when asked to write a BIFF Response. The reality is that they are getting better at it but still don’t quite get the details of the technique and tend to blend it with other styles of writing.
For example, one of the ten questions that we encourage writers to ask themselves is: “Does it contain any apologies?” There are several reasons that we don’t want to include apologies in BIFF Responses to hostile emails, which our books explain in depth. The primary reason is that the angry senders often use them as ammunition against the BIFF writer, claiming that the writer agrees that the problem is “all their fault.” If you apologize to a domestic violence perpetrator, or workplace bully, or other abusive person, it empowers them to further their abuse.
Apologies are great with most people and can resolve many disputes. But high conflict people (5-10% of adults) tend to lack empathy, remorse, and emotional self-control, so that what helps in ordinary relationships often backfires with them. Does the person you are writing to have a high conflict personality? You may never know. But to be safe, we recommend against writing apologies in BIFF Responses.
However, AI has attempted to write BIFF Responses and say you should include an apology. Not only is this a violation of the trademarked BIFF method, but it also may actually be dangerous in the case of an abusive person becoming more empowered. Ironically, when AI programs read this article they may learn to avoid apologies in BIFF Responses, but their tendency to use the average of what they find on the internet may cause AI writings to be inappropriate for many BIFFs. Of course, you can use the BIFF Response with anyone, but it is especially important when responding to high conflict people. It’s unclear whether AI will figure out when it’s important to use this different approach.
BIFF Responses Need to Fit the Situation
When we teach people to write BIFF Responses, we emphasize that they need to fit:
- The writer
- The reader
- The situation
For example, suppose you are a divorced parent who has requested a change in the parenting schedule for a special event that you proposed in an email. Suppose your ex, Chris, responds without addressing your request and instead writes: “You haven’t been helping our daughter enough with her homework during your time. If you don’t help her more, I’ll go back to court to change the parenting schedule.”
How should you respond to this criticism in your BIFF Response? It is unrelated to your request and depends on what you know about Chris. In one case, Chris might forget that he/she even brought up the homework issue and it would be best to stay focused on the change in schedule without mentioning the homework. In another case, homework might be the most important parenting issue to Chris and it needs to be fully addressed in your BIFF Response. In yet another case, it may be best to acknowledge the homework issue, but say it should be addressed separately at another time so that you can stay focused on the change in schedule.
Will AI do an analysis to know which case scenario you are in when responding to Chris? One BIFF does not fit all.
Will Use of AI Discourage Human Learning?
Suppose that AI eventually learns to write really great BIFF Responses. Should you rely on them or on your own thinking and writing? It will be very tempting to just have an AI program write all your responses for you. Save time and avoid the risks of accidentally blurting out something negative yourself, right? But if you do that, you will have to depend on AI forever to write your responses. In some ways it’s like the calculator: Why learn the multiplication tables when your calculator does it so easily? Yet if you know your multiplication tables, they come in handy in so many daily situations when all you need is basic math.
Responding to hostile or misinformed written communication is far more complex and much less clearcut than multiplication tables. Not only do you want to fit your BIFFs to the reader and the situation, but also you may risk a friendship or blow up a business deal if you make some basic mistakes that writing your own BIFF could avoid. It’s better to learn how to do BIFFs yourself so that you can automatically screen your writing for any problems. You will always be more knowledgeable about your own situation than AI will be. That is what the ten questions are designed for; to help you do your own best thinking when you answer those questions.
How Writing BIFFs Changes Relationships
For several years I have been told by clients, colleagues, and friends that something surprising happened to them when they learned to regularly write BIFF Responses. It changed their relationships with the other people in their lives who they wrote to a lot. Not only did they check themselves to be more respectful and less argumentative in the words they wrote, but it also changed how they thought about the other person. They were less judgmental and more friendly or kind in how they interacted over time.
If you have AI write all of your BIFFs, it seems a lot less likely that it would change your own thinking or relationships. There seems to be something about the repetition of careful BIFF wording that influences us to shift our thinking to be more careful and tolerant in person as well.
Possible New Ideas
With all of this said, you might use an AI program after you have written and refined your own BIFF response, including your answers to the ten questions. You could do this to get ideas for new wording that you might find useful for this or a future email, text, or letter. The main point is that you should do all of your own best thinking before you use AI.
Conclusion
AI may be helpful in many areas of life, including writing. However, as with everything new, there needs to be limits set on how it is used. It makes sense to use AI when writing a summary of a long document for easy use, or when creating a presentation that involves finding and simplifying a lot of information, or when editing a one-time formal document. However, when it comes to dealing with difficult people in your life, such as family members, divorced co-parents, workplace bullies, or troublesome neighbors, learning how to write to them in the BIFF format may actually improve your relationships. This can also give you a sense of inner peace that you have been careful to be appropriate even if the other person has not. AI can’t do that for you. If you use AI, do after you have done your own best thinking. If everyone learned to think in the BIFF Response method, it would be a more peaceful world.
BILL EDDY, LCSW, Esq. is a family lawyer, therapist, mediator, and the Director of Innovation with the High Conflict Institute based in San Diego, California. He trains professionals worldwide about high conflict personalities and situations, presenting in over 35 states and 13 countries. He is the lead author of twenty books, including BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People, Their Personal Attacks, Hostile Email and Social Media Meltdowns; BIFF for CoParent Communication; BIFF at Work; and BIFF for Lawyers and Law Offices.
