We’re noticing that more journalists are actively requesting non-AI written comments and articles.
With AI speeding up writing and therefore allowing much higher amounts of content to be pushed out, we can see the temptation for marketing teams, but journalists are already wise to this. But the blame cannot be placed just on PR and marketers. Unfortunately, even before copy gets to a journalist, PRs and marketing managers are also receiving AI written material to distribute from subject matter experts (SMEs) so here, we’ll give some handy tips to spot AI-written text:
- It’s not this, it’s this
This contrast structure is overused by AI and is formulaic, which is of course what AI represents…predictable, formulaic content.
- The rule of three
AI loves to group in threes…fast, responsive and predictable, for example. Of course, we also write in threes, but not as often as AI
- Em dashes
These — have now started to pop up everywhere….I must admit, clients are also starting to ask for them! Their overuse seems unnatural, we don’t use this many in natural writing.
- Conclusions with if you don’t do this now….
A lot of AI conclusions will basically say do this now, or you are at risk of something worse. An example is “if you fail to act, you will fall behind.”
- Lots of subheadings
AI is structured and often mimics SEO article formatting and logic where information is compartmentalised.
- Lists like crazy
AI loves order and lists fit the bill. We don’t speak in lists that often, so having multiple bulleted and numbered lists in one article to explain different things doesn’t feel natural.
- No real-world anecdotes
AI may hallucinate some case studies and these will often reflect a best case scenario that it thinks you want to hear, but AI cannot draw on real examples.
- No strong opinion
AI doesn’t like to offend, rather it will sit on the fence, so will offer a balanced argument – no riks taken and definitely no industry criticism.
- Repetitive summaries at the end of paras
AI loves to reiterate and sum up content, so often you will find a short summary of a paragraph, which frankly just repeats the previous content.
- Isn’t messy
Human writing will reflect some personality, humour/sarcasm, and isn’t always grammatically perfect, whereas AI shows no personality and is bland and written smoothly.
12. Generic phrasing
Back in the day, we took on an SEO writer and she started articles with “in the advent of the internet” – I feel like she may have trained an AI somewhere in the world. She didn’t last long with us, but generic phrases like “in today’s fast paced world” or “businesses must adapt to succeed” are also clues to AI writing.
13. Overexplaining
AIs will often go back to basics and explain concepts, as though it is trying to understand what it is writing about.
If you are presented with any text from a client/subject matter expert or tempted to use AI to help you write content, we would recommend using tools like ZeroGPT or Grammarly to check something before submitting to a journalist. These tools are not 100% accurate however, but will flag up AI writing. Then you can edit your content to sound more human as often the ideas in the material are good, just the writing is not natural.
