How to Detect AI-Generated Text: A Complete Guide for Beginners
Jeroen Seynhaeve 2025-10-28
AI-generated text is content created by artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or other language models. These tools can write articles, emails, essays, and social media posts in seconds. While AI writing has many legitimate uses, knowing how to spot it has become increasingly important for teachers, employers, editors, and content creators.
Best Online AI Detection Tools (Free & Paid)
Free AI Detection Tools
- Naturally, one way to check whether a piece of text was written by AI is to ask a chatbot — one of the very tools famous for generating AI content. Simply copy and paste the suspicious text into ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or any other AI chat platform, and ask it to analyse the text for signs of AI authorship.
- GPTZero was designed specifically for educators and analyses text based on “perplexity” and “burstiness.” Its free version allows a limited number of scans per month and highlights specific sentences it suspects were generated by AI.
- Copyleaks AI Content Detector also offers a free, limited-use version that supports multiple languages. It provides a probability score indicating how likely a text is AI-generated and can additionally check for plagiarism.
- Another popular option is the Writer.com AI Content Detector, which is completely free and does not require sign-up. It features a simple interface for quick analysis and provides a percentage likelihood of AI authorship.
Paid AI Detection Tools
- Among the most advanced AI detection tools available today, Originality.AI stands out for its industry-leading accuracy, claiming over 99% precision when detecting GPT-4 content. It operates on a pay-per-use basis at roughly $0.01 per 100 words and also includes plagiarism checking and batch scanning features, making it ideal for professional and large-scale use.
- Turnitin, widely used in academic institutions, integrates AI detection within its well-known plagiarism checker. It offers institutional pricing only, and its reports include confidence scores indicating the likelihood of AI-generated text.
- Another academic-oriented option, Scribbr, uses a pay-per-scan model and provides detailed reports that highlight potentially AI-written sections.
- Meanwhile, Content at Scale AI Detector caters more to marketers and publishers, offering both free and paid versions. It detects text patterns across multiple AI models, making it a versatile choice for content professionals aiming to maintain authenticity in their writing.
Tools and Manual Techniques That Help Hide AI Involvement
Some tools and techniques are designed to make AI-generated text appear more human. While using them to deceive readers isn’t recommended, understanding how they work can help you recognise when content has been manipulated.
- Among the most well-known AI humaniser tools, Undetectable.AI rewrites AI-generated text to bypass detection systems while preserving its original meaning. It’s a subscription-based service aimed at users who want their text to appear more naturally written.
- StealthWriter also focuses on evading AI detectors, offering multiple “humanisation” levels and compatibility with various AI models.
- QuillBot, though not explicitly designed to conceal AI origins, is a popular paraphrasing tool that restructures sentences and refines writing. It has legitimate applications for improving clarity and flow but is sometimes misused for AI concealment.
Beyond automated tools, people also employ manual techniques to make AI-generated content seem more authentic. These include adding personal anecdotes and concrete examples, varying sentence lengths and structures, introducing minor imperfections intentionally, and infusing the text with personal opinions or local references. Such adjustments make writing appear more organic and less formulaic—key signs of genuine human authorship.
Emerging Trends for AI Detection
Several new trends are shaping the future of AI detection, as researchers and developers seek more reliable ways to distinguish between human and machine-generated text. One promising approach is watermarking, where AI companies embed invisible markers or patterns within generated text to indicate its artificial origin. Another innovation involves blockchain verification, which uses blockchain technology to certify and verify human authorship, ensuring transparency and accountability in digital content. Behavioral analysis is also gaining traction — instead of examining a single text in isolation, this method tracks a writer’s patterns and style over time to detect inconsistencies that may suggest AI involvement. Finally, hybrid approaches are emerging as the most robust solution, combining multiple detection methods — such as linguistic analysis, metadata tracking, and watermarking — to achieve greater overall accuracy and resilience against evasion tactics.
Conclusion: Detection is Getting Harder, Transparency Matters More
Detecting AI-generated text remains possible but increasingly challenging. The best AI detection tools offer 70-80% accuracy, not certainty. Both technological detection methods and manual evaluation of writing patterns can help identify AI content.
Rather than relying solely on detection, many industries are shifting toward requiring transparency about AI use. Clear communication about when and how AI tools are involved may prove more effective than trying to catch people after the fact.
For now, use multiple detection tools, stay informed about new methods, and focus on the quality and appropriateness of content—whether created by humans, AI, or a combination of both.