Content creation has gone through major changes over the past year, and the biggest driver behind that shift has been artificial intelligence. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and many others let you create articles, scripts, social media posts, and all kinds of other content in just a few minutes.
That ease of use has helped optimize time across many types of tasks, while also democratizing writing and boosting productivity. But alongside those benefits, AI writing tends to make all of these creations feel repetitive, generic, and stiff.
That raises the question: how do you humanize AI-generated text?
In this piece, you’ll learn more about creating content with artificial intelligence, which AI writing deserves your attention, and recommendations for putting the technology to work for the quality of your writing. Keep reading!
What Is a “Tell”?
A tell, in this context, is the absence of naturalness and spontaneity — a habit or pattern so consistent it gives something away. In writing, this same idea applies to artificial-sounding text and literary constructions.
So when we talk about AI writing, we mean the repetitive linguistic, structural, or stylistic patterns that reveal a piece of content was produced with the help of artificial intelligence.
These aren’t language errors or grammatical mistakes — they’re repetitions that make content predictable, generic, and hard to stay engaged with for whoever’s reading it.
Practical Examples of AI Writing Tells
If you want to spot AI writing tells, there are certain terms, sentence constructions, and language patterns this kind of technology tends to follow. The most common signs that content was written by a bot include:
- Repeated structures and words throughout the text.
- Terms rarely used today.
- Overuse of connectors like “moreover,” “therefore,” “in this way.”
- A neutral tone that leaves the content without personality.
- Generic phrases and buzzwords, like “crucial,” “effective,” and “ensure.”
- Overly long lists.
- Text full of redundancies and abstract analogies — like describing a cozy, well-decorated room as “curtains that dance and cushions that wait for you.”
None of this necessarily changes the message of the text, but it does hurt readability and the genuine connection with whoever’s consuming the content. That’s why it’s so important to understand the relationship between these tells and the technology behind them, in order to find ways to humanize AI-written text.
One thing that often gets flagged as an AI tell incorrectly is the use of the em dash. A piece of content having an em dash doesn’t mean it was generated by AI — it’s a legitimate punctuation mark in the English language, one that’s long been used to set off dialogue, add emphasis, and clarify embedded clauses.
Why Do AI Writing Tells Happen?
When you interact with an artificial intelligence, you can tell it has a distinctive communication style, with language patterns that repeat themselves. These tells aren’t random — they’re a direct result of how these systems are built and trained:
- It copies what it reads: AI learned by reading a massive amount of text from the internet. As a result, it tends to pick up common “verbal tics” and overused stock phrases. That’s why AI-written text sometimes sounds like it’s from another era — if it reads a lot of formal writing, it’ll come across more serious and robotic.
- It’s a “word guesser”: at its core, AI is always trying to predict the most likely next word. To play it safe, it tends to choose common, generic phrasing that fits almost anywhere — which is exactly why it sounds repetitive.
- It’s “afraid” of getting it wrong: it’s built to be cautious and avoid saying anything that could be held against it. That’s why it often uses hedges like “it’s possible that…” or “generally speaking,” to avoid ever committing to an absolute claim. This behavior reinforces just how important it is to always review AI-generated content.
- It lacks real-life experience: unlike us, AI has no feelings, no memories, and hasn’t lived in the real world. It doesn’t actually understand what it’s saying — it just repeats the patterns it picked up from text. Sharing real experience within content is a key SEO factor, since demonstrating genuine expertise and knowledge through real cases, testimonials, and interviews simply isn’t something AI can do.
The ideal use for this tool is organizing ideas, building a foundation, and mapping out new topics — but most of the work behind a genuinely good piece of writing still has to be human.
5 Ways AI Writing Tells Impact Communication and Content
All of these linguistic issues and AI tells have a real impact on how a text performs and how people perceive the information in it.
Here are a few problems that can crop up when you use artificial intelligence too heavily, without proper oversight:
1. Loss of authenticity
When content sounds artificial, it becomes very hard to convey a brand’s or a product’s authenticity through it. As a result, the people reached by that content may not feel confident enough to purchase the product or service being offered, putting the credibility of the message into question.
2. Reading fatigue
Wordy, repetitive, and confusing text can make it harder for whoever’s on the other side of the screen to follow the message. All of that combined makes for a tiring, uninteresting read, limiting engagement and increasing the chance the page gets closed.
3. Lack of personality
Because its language is more standardized, AI-generated content doesn’t carry the personality your brand needs to build real connections. That results in material that feels emotionless, overly generic, and shallow — keeping readers from identifying with it or considering your business as the solution to their problem.
4. Loss of trust
Companies that publish content packed with AI writing tells can end up eroding trust with potential customers. That’s because everything created sounds artificial and fails to represent the business’s actual values and beliefs.
5. Generic, shallow content
Since AI doesn’t take a stance on issues that may matter to your brand, the content it produces ends up generic and lacking depth. On top of that, your business still runs the risk of blending in with others that also lean heavily on artificial intelligence in their content strategy.
Read also: SEMrush — The Tool That Can Help You With SEO!
How Do You Humanize AI-Generated Text?
The presence of writing tells in AI-generated content is a challenge for final quality, but it doesn’t erase the value of the tool in creative workflows. The key to getting the most out of it, then, is knowing how to humanize AI-written text.
Here are our tips:
1. Base your content on credible sources and solid research
The best way to back up a claim in a piece of content is by citing reliable studies and sources as references. Look for institutions that are recognized authorities in that field to validate and build on whatever AI produces.
For example, if the text covers laws or legal rights, research directly on official government or justice department websites, and make sure to link to those sources in the content. That way, the material will be more complete for readers and will also help prevent the spread of misinformation.
2. Define a tone of voice
Defining a tone of voice aligned with your brand’s personality is one of the most effective ways to humanize a text and avoid the impersonal feel of AI-generated content. The goal is to create communication that feels like a conversation, building a real connection with the reader, instead of just laying out facts.
To work, that tone of voice also needs to fit the subject matter. A serious topic, for example, should be treated with the weight it deserves in how the text is built. With a clear tone of voice and personality, it becomes much easier to keep communication clear and aligned with the content’s purpose.
3. Do a thorough editing pass
The safest way to humanize AI-generated text is by carefully reviewing whatever the technology produces — keeping in mind that AI output can be a starting point, but never the final text. This review should be responsible for:
- removing repeated terms or anything out of step with the brand’s tone of voice;
- organizing the hierarchy of headings and subheadings;
- making blocks of text flow better and scan more easily, for a smoother reading experience;
- adding contextual internal and external links, helping both readers and search engines discover other pages;
- weaving in keywords related to the topic throughout the text, including variations — especially conversational terms — to bring the content closer to how people actually search across different search engines;
- adjusting AI writing tells, removing or reworking them as the text requires;
- adding supporting material like videos, interviews, and quotes from authorities in the field;
- bringing in personality to make the content more relatable, among other things.
This review needs to be done carefully, to strike the right balance between what AI makes easier and the human touch content creation still needs.
4. Run a final checklist to evaluate your content
After all these steps, take a step back and look at the content with fresh eyes to spot other improvements and make any needed adjustments. Your checklist for evaluating how to humanize AI-written text can include questions like:
- Does the text include credible references and sources?
- Is the brand’s tone of voice clear?
- Does the sentence rhythm vary?
- Have repetitions and redundancies been reworked or removed?
- Does the text deliver on the promise made in the title?
- Is the keyword used appropriately?
- If read out loud, would the content still make sense?
If your content checks these boxes, you’ve successfully humanized it and brought it in line with expectations.
5. Invest in content creation with specialists
Even though AI makes content production easier, it isn’t the best choice on its own for your strategy. Beyond every problem it can cause — like spreading inaccurate information — it can also undermine your credibility simply by being easy to spot.
That’s why the best way to guarantee quality content is by working with skilled writing and content professionals actively working in your business’s favor to make sure your content speaks directly to the audience you’re trying to reach.
If you want content — or want to know how to humanize AI-written text — that builds trust in your communication, Ecto has a team of SEO and content specialists ready to help you achieve strong results with content that’s genuinely useful throughout your product or service’s buying journey.
Get Ready for the Future of Content With Ecto!
Backed by data, search behavior insights, creativity, and the perfect balance between what AI makes easier and the human touch, we’re able to turn text into conversions that matter for your business.
By investing in content marketing with Ecto, you get:
- Strategic content planning, built around your company’s goals.
- Data-driven briefs, using internal tools that scrape both search results and competitor sites to uncover the best ranking opportunities.
- SEO-optimized content, so it gets found in search engines while genuinely helping the people searching for it.
- Brief tracking through Ecto Tools, Ecto’s own platform that lets you see every stage of content creation and how your content ranks in search results.
Ecto’s content strategy adapts to your operation, your team, and your goals. Choose the human touch from the Ecto team to help your business grow sustainably. Talk to our team to learn more!
