Diagnosis
Why your writing sounds like AI
Pick the surface you are writing for. The causes are not the same across them.
Writing reads as machine-written when its structure is more predictable than its content. The specific patterns differ by surface: a cover letter fails on borrowed formality, a LinkedIn post on rhythm, an academic abstract on hedging it never needed. Each page below names the tells that cluster on one surface and what the format does to produce them.
By surface
Each page covers one format, the tells that dominate it, and a before and after in that genre.
- General writing
- The specific patterns that make writing read as AI-generated, ranked by how often they actually appear across twelve models, not vibes.
- Editing procedure
- A sequenced edit pass ordered by how often each pattern actually appears in AI output, not an alphabetical list of things to avoid.
- Creative writing
- The tells that get fiction flagged are not vocabulary. They are a resolution on schedule and dialogue that explains its own subtext.
- Cover letters
- The cover letter's enthusiasm predates AI. This page separates the genre convention from the register that now reads as machine-written.
- Resume
- A resume is bullet-shaped already, so the usual AI tells do not apply. What flags it is the vague verb with no number attached.
- Blog post
- The blog-post AI tell is not word choice. It is the content-mill scaffold underneath: the numbered promise, the bold sub-heads, the tidy close.
- LinkedIn post
- LinkedIn's hook-bullets-question format predates ChatGPT. The model learned it from years of posts already built on that exact template.
- Press release
- Wire-service convention and AI significance-inflation look alike. This page separates the two, including the invented executive quote.
- Online writing
- The convergence has a measurable shape: a set of discourse moves, not a word list. Our twelve-model logs show why it spreads past anyone who used AI.
- Product descriptions
- Buyers already discount superlatives. This page grades AI product copy on whether a claim can be checked, not on whether it sounds human.
- Academic writing
- Academic prose was trained toward the same targets the models were. This page names which scholarly conventions are load-bearing and must stay.