How to tell if writing is AI: The 6 elements of robot style
“Amelia tells me you know when writing is AI or not.”
We were poring over the portfolios and samples of freelance writers in her spreadsheet. I’d already looked through the writing before our meeting, and, well… I was surprised. A lot of the samples showed more than a hint of AI.
To be clear, I have used (and still use) AI as a collaborator. And perhaps I’m too much of a romantic… but I want the writing to still feel like me. Why choose to be a writer or create content if you eliminate the one thing you got into this for: the actual writing part.
“The signs are subtle,” I told her. “But just as Kafka had a writing style, and Emily Dickinson, apparently AI has one too.”
She had a look on her face like ‘this-AI-business-is-adding-stress-when-it-should-be-taking-away’. “What should I be looking for?”
So I told her what a piece of writing looks like when it´s been ‘assisted’ by ChatGPT, or when the whole brief has been thrown into Claude.
Here’s what I said:
1. Excessive use of emdashes
As of now, ChatGPT has a staggering number of weekly active users, and is the go-to for many marketers. But ChatGPT is deeply infatuated with one punctuation mark in particular: the em dash (—).
Em dashes are used to add thoughts in the middle of a sentence, and ChatGPT usually squeezes them between sentences—like this—instead of having a space between them — like this.
AI loves to add em dashes to create tension!! and drama!! in their sentences. But 90% of the time they can be cut or replaced by commas.
Of course, writers who love a good em dash now face a horrible catch-22: lose a useful punctuation mark entirely, or potentially be judged for using AI (even if you didn’t).
[Dead AI image]
My opinion? Use them, but question if they’re the most effective choice in each sentence, or whether you’re dropping them lazily where another punctuation mark would work instead.
Look out for:
"She opened the ancient book—its pages brittle and yellowed—and discovered a map that would change her life forever."
"Many people believe AI will replace humans completely—but the reality is far more nuanced."
"Exciting news awaits you this Friday—don’t miss our exclusive announcement!"
2. Forced sass
Is it me, or do AI systems constantly carry Mean Girls energy?
When the ‘edge-lord’ style is dialed up so much that I want to vomit, it’s usually a good signal it was written by AI.
On LinkedIn it’s particularly bad, because a ‘hot take’ is a post format where AI can be spotted a mile away. Ta-da phrases like ‘but here’s the truth’ or ‘but here’s what nobody’s saying’ are AI’s way of creating conflict in a piece of writing. Usually, they can be replaced with a simple ‘But’.
Look out for:
"But here's the thing:"
"The result?"
"Hot take:"
3. AI Buzzwords
A brilliant study was conducted in April 2025 at the University of Helsinki to find changes in student essays from pre- and post-ChatGPT.
They found that certain words surged in usage:
Also, student answers grew in terms of number of words and sentence length.
With ‘delve’ near the top of the leader board, it’s also alarming how many medical papers began using the word ‘delve’ on PubMed.
A count of the word “delve” in medical papers. ChatGPT’s first full year was 2023. (credit: Jeremy Nguyen)
In the content marketing world, I’ve spotted loads of similar buzzwords repeated from titles: Unlock, Empower, Elevate, or certain title structures: ‘from X to Y’, ‘X Things you should Know’, ‘Master X in X Days’.
Does this mean that you can no longer use the word ‘crucial’, ‘significant’ or ‘important’, even if it really is?
Of course not. But it does mean you should delve into what’s truly crucial, leverage these terms only when needed, and foster a critical connection between the words you use and your message.
😉
JRR Tolkien: AI fraud?
4. Cliché phrases
What do 19th-century Romanticism-era poets and AI have in common?
They are both obsessed with landscapes.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog - Caspar David Friedrich, 1818
You know a piece of writing is AI when it starts with cliché phrases: “In today’s fast-paced digital landscape’ or ‘In the dynamic world of...’
Cliché phrasing like this is becoming more commonplace and again, adds to the drama that an AI system wants to create to trigger emotions.
It’s also incredibly excited to talk about ‘looming challenges’ or being incredibly diplomatic much of the time by ‘understanding advantages and disadvantages’.
Look out for:
"In the fast-paced world of industrial farming”.
“In the dynamic landscape of Cryptocurrency”.
“As the world continues to evolve…”
5. Formulaic sentence structures
AI systems love specific sentence structures, and especially abuse the rule of three.
And I get it. Three is symmetry: Sun, Moon, Earth; past, present, future, Father, Son, Holy Spirit…
But AI systems add a third element even when it isn’t necessary. Triplets make sense if all the elements are important and not weirdly broad.
What else should you look out for? Corrective statements such as ‘It’s not just that X. It’s also Y’ are particularly common to show contrast and accurately define the topic at hand.
AI also loves breaking things down into structured lists and bullet points, even when it feels sudden because that’s the only way humans can consume information now, right? RIGHT?
P.S. Don’t forget 😂 some 😎 random 😉 emojis at the end of your sentences.
Look out for:
“It’s not just X. It’s Y”
“If you’re A, B, or C…”
“In today’s fast-paced 🌪️ world of technology 💻, it’s crucial to leverage data 📈”
6. "As a large-scale language model"
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
The only constant is change
In the end, it was impossible to avoid picking a freelancer that we thought wasn’t using AI at all.
I’m not stupid, and I try not to be jaded: I know the only way for me to progress in my field of content marketing (where AI is highly prevalent) is to use AI systems to my advantage, and get them to craft, analyse, and collaborate with me.
Then, I can do what I enjoy: explore the idea I want to communicate (and how to best communicate it.
To the naked eye, AI writing is getting harder to detect, and I won’t be surprised either if this list is out-of-date in five minutes. Pretty soon, we’ll all be just like our parents: sharing an article or video that’s AI generated, and being nonethewiser.
But what we’ll always miss is an authentic human voice and point of view.
That’s irreplaceable, no matter how prevalent AI is.
