11 Words to Avoid So You Don’t Sound Like AI
Generative AI overuses certain words. Check out 11 words and phrases that people see as telltale signs of AI content.
Generative AI is here to stay, if for no other reason than it helps people get work done better and faster than before, including content creation.
Consider these stats:
- 95% of professionals using AI spend less time on manual work
- 89% of professionals believe AI improves their content quality
- 48% of sellers struggle with communicating value to customers
This is a clear pain that generative AI can solve – creating high-quality content that communicates value. We’re talking anything from UI copy to email campaigns to blog content. With the right context, AI excels at content creation.
But since the launch of ChatGPT, people have rapidly developed internal ‘AI content detectors’. And they don’t even turn to actual AI-detection tools to verify.So what’s the giveaway? It’s not the weird sentence structures (humans are much better at that!), but the repetitive language and unnatural conversational tone that can feel so out of place and out of time.
On a side note, this list won’t contain words that are frequently considered AI yet are more likely just a different culture’s word preference, such as the word keen.
Delve
Delve is arguably the reddest red flag that something was written by AI.
It’s garnered so much attention that even Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham has stated on multiple occasions that delve is evidence of AI-written content.
One chart even shows the use of delve skyrocketing since 2022, the same year ChatGPT launched.
While not concrete proof that AI overuses delve, it does correlate with people’s perception that delve is now an AI content indicator.
The word itself is not necessarily a sign of bad content quality, but its overuse creates the off-ish tone. (Human experience is a tricky subject.)
Tapestry
Tapestry is frequently used as a metaphor to ‘tie’ several elements together, such as “Our skills, experiences, and relationships are like threads in the tapestry of our lives.”
Generative Artificial Intelligence often likes to use tapestry to start sentences, such as “In the tapestry of life” or “Friendship is a tapestry”.
While there’s nothing wrong with intricately interwoven personal experiences, when a word is done to death, the cognitive load is just too much to bear.
In today’s ever-evolving world
You can swap ever-evolving for another adjective like ever-changing or ever-increasing. Alternatively, you might see rapidly evolving or rapidly changing.
In any case, if you see the construction In today’s [optional adverb + adjective] world, chances are you’re reading either an English-as-a-foreign-language textbook or an AI content writing output.
Unless you’re studying for Cambridge English exams, it’s most likely the latter. And human insight is not so easily fooled.
In summary | In conclusion | In essence
Here’s a special 3-in-1 AI-generated text combo.
School teaches us that good writing composition requires us to finish essays with a conclusion paragraph. Naturally, generative AI’s going to do the same.
The trick is how to start that paragraph, and AI’s go-to solution is one of these common phrases.
You might even find AI using other words like Ultimately, or To conclude,.
Ironically, AI wants to sound more human-like, only ending up viewed as 100% AI-generated content.
It’s important to note
Like most of the phrases that AI uses, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using It’s important to note.
It’s just going to sound… off.
While it’s useful for drawing attention to a certain point, it’s a filler phrase that could be replaced with simpler and more concise versions like Keep in mind or even just Note:.
Computer-generated content is big on all kinds of fillers and adjectives. Content creators, you’ve been warned.
Cutting-edge
Likely a byproduct of being developed by Silicon Valley-based geniuses, but any new technology or advancement is likely to be described as cutting-edge.
Honestly speaking, the downfall of cutting-edge from cutting-edge (pun intended) marketing jargon to AI red flag is tragic. Human writing will just never be the same without cutting-edge cutting the edge of every future piece of content.
Quinoa
This is more of a fun addition because if you use the word quinoa, you’re either:
A sales rep for a farm or company selling healthy foods
A person looking for alternatives to wheat and rice
Why?
People who brainstorm recipe ideas using ChatGPT frequently receive quinoa as a suggestion.
Sometimes AI-written text can be straight-up weird.
Multifaceted
Multifaceted is a good example of AI’s tendency to present topics as highly complex, if not downright convoluted. When AI drops the word multifaceted, you can rest assured it will be followed by at least 4-5 paragraphs of explanation.
A normal person would probably just say complex or complicated. The key is in the tone of voice.
Testament
Unless you’re talking about the bible, chances are low you’ll encounter testament in everyday conversation. You might run across it in more formal circumstances where rhetoric has greater importance, such as academic settings or a public speech.
That’s why if you encounter testament somewhere like a cold email, it’s probably AI-generated text.
Advanced language models are so advanced.
Certainly!
Ask ChatGPT a question and there’s a good chance it will reply with Certainly!
Perfectly normal word, perfectly normal situation, perfectly normal red flag.
After close to two years of ChatGPT responses, you’re likely to be conditioned and triggered to think AI whenever you see Certainly! (In comparison, people commonly respond with Sure,.)
We humans are not very happy about repetitive language, even if it’s perfectly and grammatically reasonable.
Revolutionary
Go to any person who’s used ChatGPT and you’ll learn that everything is revolutionary in ChatGPT’s eyes.
This is probably more our fault though. A case of human oversight, one might say.
Humans have a tendency to use words like revolutionize and revolutionary to make something seem cutting-edge (here we go again), disruptive, and cool (Note: Despite containing several red flags 🚩, this sentence wasn’t written by AI).
Create humanly awesome AI content with AiSDR
One of ChatGPT’s “fatal flaws” is creating copy that’s adjective-heavy with lots of ‘fluff’ words. That’s why people’s inner AI content detectors have become calibrated to take note of how frequently adjectives and non-everyday words are used.
Learning how not to sound like AI starts with ditching overused buzzwords and writing the way real people actually talk.
Our outreach success team constantly fine-tunes our AI to make sure it isn’t plagued by these issues. So that every email sounds humanly natural, humanly awesome, and 100% unique, they instruct AI about which words, phrases, and spellings to use and not use.
The result? Leads can’t tell that the messages were originally by AI.
