Nov. 7, 2025
Why Does My Writing Sound Like AI?
The internet is now cluttered with low-quality, low-effort, AI generated texts, images, and videos. Commonly known as “AI slop,” this type of content is often bland, generic, and even boring. You might come across a post and immediately think, “Well, that’s obviously AI.” And you’re probably right.
But there’s another problem that’s developing alongside the rise of AI-generated content. Now when we—the surely human writers—spend hours painstakingly working on an article, proposal, essay, research paper, sometimes the surely human can sound not-so-human.
Why do we sometimes write like AI? Surely, I am not a robot, even if I sometimes fail the captcha.
Some indicators of AI-generated content
The University of Calgary does not encourage the use of AI-detectors, partly because of privacy concerns, and partly because of their tendency to return false positives. Still, AI has many well-known signs and tells that you can watch out for.
In an effort to clean AI-generated content on their website, Wikipedia has published an article that lists phrases and conventions that AI tools tend to produce.
Here’s a few examples of common phrases in AI-generated texts:
- Stands as a…
- It’s important to…
- Highlighting/emphasizing…
“Okay,” you might say, “I use these phrases.” So do a lot of other people, even without relying on AI tools. Does that just mean our writing is bland, generic, and boring? Probably not.
Why AI sounds like AI
The first few iterations of AI tools were trained on human-created content, meaning they learned the most common patterns and stylistic choices to help them produce content that sounds and looks similar to the data that they analyzed.
AI tools use statistical modeling to generate content, calculating the most likely correct response. When prompted to write, AI generates the most likely sequences of words. But this statistical model causes AI tools to absorb and amplify what they learn. In this case, AI learned human conventions and produced an overwhelming volume of content that followed those conventions.
The underlying goal of AI was to study human content in order to sound human. The truth is that people like us were the first to rely on certain phrasings and conventions in our writing. Now, newer iterations of AI tools are increasingly trained on AI-written content, further increasing the likelihood of AI generating content that sounds like AI.
The “Likely-AI” label is a problem for everyone
“AI tools generating content that sounds like AI” is an obvious outcome, sure, but what about the people who don’t use AI but happen to sound like AI?
After all, not all AI conventions are bad. The rule of three, for example, is a writing principle that suggests a list of three things is often more effective than any other number. The rule of three is a staple method in various industries, like marketing, comedy, and literature. (This very blog leverages the rule of three much more than once.)
Additionally, words like “highlighting” and “emphasizing,” though often labeled as AI-sounding, convey important information, and you might find them very useful when writing a paper.
My writing sounds like AI. What do I do to “fix” it?
With captchas, we have to prove to our computers that we are humans. With AI, it seems that we now have to prove to people that we are fellow people. So how do we, the surely humans, write less like AI and more like humans?
Again, these AI tools were designed to mimic human language. AI sometimes sounds like us, not the other way around.
Still, here are some tips you can implement to make sure your writing sounds like you:
- Switch up your syntax and sentence lengths.
- Avoid inflating the prose with buzzwords.
- Use words and phrasings that you personally like.
Every faculty, department, and industry have established norms and conventions exactly because these methods worked. The point now is to inject a bit of your personality into your writing where possible, even in some formal situations.
Additional Resources
We are at a point where Generative Artificial Intelligence and people use the same language. Remember that AI tools should be used to support your learning, not to offload or delegate work. Developing our own writing skills supports our personal development while showcasing genuine academic effort.
Here are a few more resources to improve your writing: