No. Unedited AI writing is the problem, not AI writing itself. A draft produced with AI that is thoughtfully revised with cuts, reordering, rewriting in your own cadence is indistinguishable from any other well-edited piece. What readers react against is output that was generated and published hastily with all the sloppy hedging and padding, and no evidence a human made a decision about any of it. The tells are the clearest sign that nobody cared enough to look. Why should readers care about reading it?

What’s the difference between AI writing and human writing?

Less than most people assume. Blind tests have repeatedly found readers rating AI-generated text as highly as human writing, sometimes higher. However, a human writer decides what to leave out, which claim to stand behind, and where to let a sentence sit unresolved. A model includes everything and commits to nothing, because that is what it was trained to do. Both can read well. But even good writing styles, when overused, can become tiresome.

Can readers actually tell?

Mostly not. Cashew’s survey of 2,149 North American consumers found 87% believe brand content is at least partly AI-created, while only 13% are very confident they can identify it. So the average reader can’t reliably prove what’s machine-written. But they suspect everything, and they penalize simply based on suspicion. And as more such content hits the internet, as is expected, and as readers get better at pattern recognition, they will be able to tell with greater success.

Does Google penalize AI content?

Not for simply being AI-generated. Google’s position, stated in 2023 and unchanged since, is that it rewards quality content however it’s produced. The policy that actually bites is called scaled content abuse. Introduced in the March 2024 spam update, it targets generating many pages primarily to manipulate rankings rather than help users. It applies regardless of method: AI, human writers, scraping, or a mix. Human-written thin content is covered under this policy. On May 15, 2026 Google clarified that these same spam policies also apply to generative AI responses in Search (its AI Overviews and AI Mode). Using AI won’t necessarily hurt you, and adding a human approval step won’t automatically save you. It is necessary but not sufficient. What matters most is whether your page is worth reading.

If I edit AI writing myself, do I need a tool?

Honestly, you don’t. All power to you, good writer. The tool is for speed and for the patterns you’ve stopped noticing in your own writing. Because with every model update, the patterns become more subtle. But they are still there.

What is AI slop?

“AI slop” is writing that reads like a machine produced it: fluent, equivocating, and strangely empty. The sentences hedge and balance too neatly, lean on a small set of overused words, and pad pretty much every point. And then there’s the jargon, and the summaries that spoon-feed every takeaway.

This page is about AI slop in text. The same word gets used for AI images and video; the tells there are different.

Of course we’re all using these tools. They have certainly helped me personally get past the dreaded blinking cursor on a blank page. A 2025 Ahrefs study found 74% of newly created web pages contained AI-generated content. That’s not necessarily all AI slop. It includes finishing touches that writers may have applied with the help of AI. What does make some of it slop is when no one reviews it and it has the telltale signs of AI writing. With LLM use on the rise, readers can now feel it, even when they can’t put their finger on it. Slop signals that the writer did not put in any effort to review and refine. It erodes trust. The fix is always reviewing what you publish, cutting out the tells, and adding a warm, human voice that values simplicity.

How common is AI-generated content?

By late 2025, roughly 300,000 e-books were being released on Amazon each month, up from about 100,000 before ChatGPT. In academia, 57% of arXiv papers showed AI-influenced language in 2025, up from 12% in 2023. When everyone has the same tools, sounding like the tools is what makes you indistinguishable.

You’re already presumed guilty

Everyone expects you to use AI. For your LinkedIn posts, for your important emails, for internal memos. And even for sales and marketing materials. Cashew, a market research company, found in their survey of 2,149 North American consumers that 87% believe brand content is at least partly AI-created, while only 13% are very confident they can tell what is and what isn’t.

Readers are scanning for confirmation of a suspicion they already hold. Which is why you need to eliminate the easy-to-spot patterns.

What does AI slop cost you?

A Gartner survey of 1,539 US consumers in October 2025 found that 50% would prefer to buy from brands that don’t use AI in consumer-facing content, and 68% frequently wonder whether what they’re seeing is real.

Klaviyo and Datalily’s survey of 8,000 consumers found 31% trust a brand less when marketing content is visibly AI-generated.

Data from Skyword says that when AI-generated information conflicts with a brand’s own messaging, only 29% of consumers trust the brand and 54% go looking for third-party validation. And evidence is emerging that AI slop is getting worse uptake from consumers. The Economist reported that books that appear AI-authored draw fewer and worse reviews on Amazon.

Why does AI write this way?

Large Language Models (LLMs) produce slop by design. A language model predicts the most probable next word from an enormous body of published text, so its default output is close to the average of everything written before. Human feedback training pushes it further in the same direction: reviewers reward answers that are complete, agreeable, and unlikely to offend, so a hedge scores better than a wrong claim and a summary scores better than an abrupt ending. Repeat that across millions of examples and you get a writer that never commits and never leaves anything out.

Why do AI tells keep changing?

Some 2023 giveaways have faded. “As an AI language model” is gone. The long ethical-consideration paragraph is mostly gone. But many others didn’t die. “Delve” still shows up now and then; the em-dash pileup is more discussed now than it was two years ago, and writers who used em-dashes long before ChatGPT now feel obliged to defend themselves. The list has got longer. How many times have you shaken your head at another “it’s not just this, it’s that” post on LinkedIn? A fixed blacklist will not solve the problem. What you need is a maintained taxonomy.

The 17 signs of AI writing

UnSlopIt.ai delivers exactly that. As of mid-2026, these are the 17 categories of tell the UnSlopIt editor hunts for — each with its own page:

↓ Get all 17 as a one-page PDF

01
Buzz verbs
Verbs that sound like motion but describe none. AI reaches for them to seem energetic.
delveleverageunlockelevateempowersuperchargerevolutionize
02
Stock framings
Prefab openers and scaffolds that could bolt onto any topic without changing meaning.
in today's fast-paced digital landscapeit's not just X, it's Ya testament togame-changingseamlessrobust
03
Structural tells
Shapes, not words: rule-of-three pileups, throat-clearing intros, and outros that restate the whole piece.
faster, smarter, betterIt's important to note that…Let me be clear,em-dash overuseexclamation inflation
04
Empty intensifiers & adverbs
Words that turn up the volume without adding information — including adverbs bolted onto plain verbs.
trulyincrediblysignificantlyquietly transformsseamlessly runs
05
Fake balance
Reflexively airing an 'on the other hand' the author never actually held, to seem even-handed.
on the other hand…that said…however, some might argue…
06
ChatGPT / Claude speak
Words statistically overrepresented in LLM text — the ones AI-detection tools flag first.
intricatepivotalcrucialtapestrymultifacetedunderscoressolidifies its positionplays a crucial role
07
Academic filler
Journal-flavored padding: stock openers, furthermore/moreover chains, conclusions that restate the abstract.
In recent years, there has been growing interest in…the intricate interplay betweenholistic framework
08
Long-form padding
The bloat of guides and e-books: re-stating the premise each section, hollow transitions, filler chapters.
Now that we've covered X, let's turn to YIn conclusion,In summary,
09
Engagement bait
Rhetoric engineered for the scroll — commands to react, teased secrets, one-word dramatic answers.
Read that again.Let that sink in.Here's the thing:Nobody talks about this…What most people get wrongThe result? Freedom.
10
One-line paragraphs
Every sentence its own paragraph, escalation chains, and two-word manifestos posing as emphasis.
one sentence per lineFive became fifty. Fifty became a movement.Build quietly. Learn constantly.
11
False binaries & fake reversals
Manufactured either/or framings and fake contrarianism that flatter the reader.
Most people X. Successful people Y.You don't need X. You need Y.Everyone says X. They're wrong.The question isn't X, it's Y.
12
Manufactured drama
Question chains delaying a trivial answer, transformation arcs, and fake-elevation reversals.
This isn't a budget. It's a statement of intent.It changed everything.Simple? Yes. Easy? No.
13
Told, not shown
Badging a sentence as the important part — 'the key insight is', 'the tell is', or a noun phrase and a colon before a dramatic reveal — instead of writing it so the point lands on its own.
The key insight isThe crux isThe punchline isThe kicker?The tell isWhy this matters:Verdict:This is the decision that actually matters.The best part: it learnsThe detail that makes it work:
14
Chatbot residue
Assistant sign-offs and preambles left in from a copy-paste — the clearest giveaway of all.
Hope this helps!Let me know if you have any questionsCertainly!After careful consideration,As an AI language model,
15
Emoji inflation
Emoji used as decoration and scaffolding rather than expression — a badge on every heading, a marker on every bullet, and a rocket bolted to every announcement.
🚀 in every announcement✅ as bullet pointsKey takeaways 📌emoji-per-list-item✨ around any claim of quality
16
Hollow explanationsnew
Empty trailing clauses that pretend to explain — 'highlighting', 'underscoring', 'reflecting' — bolted onto a fact without adding one.
highlighting the team's commitmentunderscoring the importance ofreflecting a broader shiftshowcasing its dedication todemonstrating the value of
17
Weasel wordsnew
Vague, unsourced authority — 'experts agree', 'studies show', 'widely regarded as' — that borrows credibility without naming a source.
experts agreestudies showresearch suggestswidely regarded asmany argueit is widely believed

These are the principles that will help you fix sloppy content. It is not a fixed blacklist of words. It asks you to cut out what doesn’t inform, vary your rhythm, delete announcements of importance, and above all read it before you ship it. You don’t have to prove to readers that your voice is human, you just have to not give them anything to point at.

Now that you can spot the tells, fix them: How to humanize AI text — a 5-step method →

FAQs

Is AI writing bad?: No. Unedited AI writing is the problem, not AI writing itself. A draft produced with AI that is thoughtfully revised with cuts, reordering, rewriting in your own cadence is indistinguishable from any other well-edited piece. What readers react against is output that was generated and published hastily with all the sloppy hedging and padding, and no evidence a human made a decision about any of it. The tells are the clearest sign that nobody cared enough to look. Why should readers care about reading it?
What’s the difference between AI writing and human writing?: Less than most people assume. Blind tests have repeatedly found readers rating AI-generated text as highly as human writing, sometimes higher. However, a human writer decides what to leave out, which claim to stand behind, and where to let a sentence sit unresolved. A model includes everything and commits to nothing, because that is what it was trained to do. Both can read well. But even good writing styles, when overused, can become tiresome.
Can readers actually tell?: Mostly not. Cashew’s survey of 2,149 North American consumers found 87% believe brand content is at least partly AI-created, while only 13% are very confident they can identify it. So the average reader can’t reliably prove what’s machine-written. But they suspect everything, and they penalize simply based on suspicion. And as more such content hits the internet, as is expected, and as readers get better at pattern recognition, they will be able to tell with greater success.
Does Google penalize AI content?: Not for simply being AI-generated. Google’s position, stated in 2023 and unchanged since, is that it rewards quality content however it’s produced. The policy that actually bites is called scaled content abuse. Introduced in the March 2024 spam update, it targets generating many pages primarily to manipulate rankings rather than help users. It applies regardless of method: AI, human writers, scraping, or a mix. Human-written thin content is covered under this policy. On May 15, 2026 Google clarified that these same spam policies also apply to generative AI responses in Search (its AI Overviews and AI Mode). Using AI won’t necessarily hurt you, and adding a human approval step won’t automatically save you. It is necessary but not sufficient. What matters most is whether your page is worth reading.
If I edit AI writing myself, do I need a tool?: Honestly, you don’t. All power to you, good writer. The tool is for speed and for the patterns you’ve stopped noticing in your own writing. Because with every model update, the patterns become more subtle. But they are still there.

Unslop your draft →