5 Best AI Content Detectors: Can You Tell If It’s Human or AI?

Last Updated on January 18, 2023

AI writers are the future—you can check out my top recommendations for AI writing software here—but they’re a tool to be used responsibly.

But with the rise of ChatGPT and AI writers available to the masses, how do you check if the content was actually written by a human or AI?

Teachers will need a way to determine if the assigned work is original. Site owners may need to prevent their content from appearing “too spammy” by Google.

Enter AI content detectors.

These tools allow you to audit your AI-generated content and ensure it’s been edited enough to be considered original writing. On the other hand, publishers, professors, and businesses can use them to scan content submissions and make sure they’re human-written.

In this article, I’ve reviewed the five best AI content detectors on the market today. (Plus, we’ve tested each one to ensure they work, and—Spoiler Alert—one didn’t pass the test.)

But first, how do AI content detectors work?

If AI-generated content is supposed to sound like a human, how can you tell the man from the machine?

It turns out that AI text generators tend to follow the same predictable patterns when forming sentences. Of course, as AI models get more advanced, these patterns evolve. But at the end of the day, human writing is always more random and unpredictable than what AI writers can produce.

These tools study the model’s popular AI writers use—including GPT-2, GPT-3, and ChatGPT—and figure out the predictable patterns they use to craft sentences. Then they apply those models to text to see if it follows the AI patterns or breaks away from them enough to be considered human-written.

Some tools simply state that a piece of content is “AI” or “human” without any other context. But others will give you a % score to show how much of the text is AI-generated. (Which is a lot more helpful, if you ask me.)

Now, let’s take a look at the most popular AI detection tools available today to see how they stack up.

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.

What is the Best AI Content Detector?

Let’s get into the top companies out there, starting with Orginality.ai.

1. Originality.ai

Originality.ai is a two-for-one tool offering both plagiarism checking and AI content detection.

It’s designed for publishers, content agencies, and website buyers who want to ensure the content they’re about to publish, or purchase is original.

Here are some of my favorite features of Originality.ai:

  • Super accurate: This tool is 94% accurate on multiple models, including GPT-3 (which is used by most AI writers today)
  • Full site scan: In seconds, you can detect AI content on every page under one URL.
  • Plagiarism check: You can check for plagiarism while detecting AI content.
  • History: You can go back to all of your previous scans to review them later.
  • Checking for AI and plagiarism simultaneously took a long time for a standard-length article.

Sam’s Originality.ai Test

Test 1: How Well Did It Detect My 100% AI Written Content?

First, I gave it an article I generated with Copy.ai called “Why You Should Consider Using an AI Writer.”

I pasted the text into the tool and waited for a while on this screen:

Here are the results: 86% AI and 14% original.

This is what I would expect since this was 100% generated by AI.

Test 2: How Well Did It Detect My 100% Human Written Content?

Next, I dropped in an article I wrote for this blog, “15 Best AI Writing Software To Help You Write More in 2022.”

This was the result: 71% original and 29% AI-written.

In other words, it’s mostly human. (In fact, I didn’t use an AI writer at all.)

Pricing: You’ll pay $0.01 USD per credit, starting from $20. Once you’ve inputted your credit card information, the software will continue to top up your account whenever you run out of credits.

Verdict

Overall, the tool seems to be able to accurately spot AI-written content and gives you a % score for each, which helps you make better decisions about the results.

And with support for teams, full site scans, and a plagiarism checker, it’s a good fit for bigger businesses and content publishers.

Check Out Originality.ai Here

2. Copyleaks AI Content Detector

Copyleaks is an advanced AI content detector that claims to detect content from most AI text tools, including ChatGPT.

However, our testing told a different story.

Before we get into that, here are some things I like about Copyleaks:

  • API integration: You can connect to the Copyleaks API to add AI detection to your workflow.
  • LMS integration: LMS stands for Learning Management System, which schools use to provide learning content, collect essays, and grade assignments. Teachers can scan essays with Copyleaks from within their native LMS platform.
  • Multiple ways to scan: You can scan content wherever you are with the Copyleaks mobile app and Chrome extension.
  • I am skeptical of the accuracy of this tool after it failed my simple test.
  • It doesn’t give you a percentage, just a simple “AI-generated” or “Human-written” result.

Sam’s CopyLeaks Test

Test 1: How Well Did It Detect My 100% AI Written Content?

I entered my AI-generated article into the test page, and this is what I got:

Results: “This is human text.” FAILED.

I’m surprised that a tool that says it will detect AI content with “exceptional accuracy” can be completely wrong about the results.

Test 2: How Well Did It Detect My 100% Human Written Content?

Result: Human-written article.

Luckily, it got these results correct but didn’t quite detect AI so well.

Pricing: Copyleaks’ AI detection tool is currently free on their website. Or you can use it within the Copyleaks plagiarism checking platform starting at $10.99 a month for 100 pages. The API and LMS integrations are charged separately—see the website for details.

Verdict

While it sounds like a great tool with several unique and helpful features, Copyleaks failed the most basic test, which is why I cannot recommend it at this time.

try copyleaks for yourself

3. Content at Scale AI Detector

Content at Scale is an AI content platform that claims to be so human-like that it will pass any AI detection tool. To prove this, Content at Scale has produced its own AI detector that you can use for free on its website.

Here are the quick features of Content at Scale AI Detector:

  • Simple. Just paste the content into the box and go.
  • Accurate. It passed our simple test (as you can see below).
  • Support for newer models. Unlike some detectors that only support GPT-2, this one works for GPT-3 and ChatGPT.
  • There’s a 25,000-character limit, so it will only scan the first part of a long piece of content.

Sam’s Content At Scale Test

Test 1: How Well Did It Detect My 100% AI Written Content?

Accurately Detected AI Content

Test 2: How Well Did It Detect My 100% Human Written Content?

Accurately detected 100% human-written content with a perfect score.

Pricing: Currently, this tool is free to use on the Content at Scale website. You can contact them if you’d like access to the API (which may cost extra).

Verdict

Though simple and limited to 25,000 characters, Content at Scale’s AI Detector seems accurate and reliable. If you want to scan your content but aren’t ready to pay for a tool yet, this could be a good option for you.

Try Out Content At Scale Here

4. Writer AI Content Detector

Like Content at Scale, Writer is an AI writing platform that also provides an AI detector to prove the quality of its own AI writing.

Here’s what I like about the Writer AI Content Detector:

  • Beautiful design: This is one of the better-looking AI content detection tools out there.
  • Accurate. Like Content at Scale, this tool passed our test with flying colors.
  • Supports newer models. The writer’s AI content detector supports GPT-3 and ChatGPT, which newer AI writers use to generate content.
  • You can only enter up to 350 words into the text box for checking. Any more than that, and you’ll get hit with an error message. It’s time-consuming to go back and delete words until you hit the word count. On the other hand, you know that the tool is checking the entire sample, unlike Content at Scale.

Sam’s Writer AI Content Detector Test

Test 1: How Well Did It Detect My 100% AI Written Content?

The tool accurately identified my AI content as AI-generated content.

Test 2: How Well Did It Detect My 100% Human Written Content?

It picked up that my blog post was 100% human-written. Woohoo!

Pricing: This tool is available for free on the Writer website.

Verdict

This tool is easy to use and works very well. Plus, it’s one of the more visually-pleasing AI content detection tools.

It’s a toss-up between this and Content at Scale’s AI detector. The only difference is that Content at Scale checks only the first 25,000 characters (but doesn’t tell you where that is), while Writer forces you to shorten your input to 350 words or less (and then checks the whole thing). The choice is yours.

Try out Writer AI Content Detector here

5. GLTR

GLTR (also known as “Glitter”) stands for Giant Language Model Test Room. It’s a free demo created by researchers from IBM and Harvard in 2019 that gives you a detailed analysis of your text to determine whether it’s AI content or not.

Each word in your text sample gets a color indicating how likely that word would come up next in a sentence. If most or all words are colored green and yellow (the most likely words to come next in a sentence), chances are the text is AI-generated. If many words are purple (rare and unlikely), you can infer that it’s probably human-written.

Here’s what I like about GLTR:

  • Visual: The tool gives you an at-a-glance, detailed analysis of the text using a color scheme that makes it easy to understand the results.
  • Detailed numbers: You can view graphs of the results and get detailed statistics for each word in the text.
  • The tool is designed for GPT-2, so it’s probably not well-suited for testing content from GPT-3 and ChatGPT. However, it’s an interesting alternative tool to try if you want to get more data about a piece of text.
  • The tool doesn’t tell you clearly whether something is AI-generated text or not; it gives you the data and asks you to draw your own conclusion.

Sam’s GLTR Test

Test 1: How Well Did It Detect My 100% AI Written Content?

My 100%-AI-generated text was mostly green and yellow, with just a few purple words. This indicates machine-generated text.

Test 2: How Well Did It Detect My 100% Human Written Content?

On the other hand, the article I wrote by hand had a lot more purple words, which is typical of human-written text.

Pricing: This tool is available for free on the GLTR website.

Verdict

GLTR, while not as useful as the other tools, shows you the results from a different angle (and gives you a lot more data). So it’s worth a try, even if it’s not your go-to AI-checking tool.

Try Out GLTR Here

What is an AI Content Detector?

An AI content detector scans your content to determine if it’s been generated by an AI writing tool and, if so, how much of it is AI versus human-written.

Right now, we’re truly living in a grey area with AI content. Is it plagiarism? Not technically, because it’s generating unique content. Is it spam? Hard to tell as well, as Google says auto-generated text is spam, but content that’s generated and then human-edited is not the same.

Whatever the verdict, I highly doubt AI writers are going anywhere, and there are going to be lots of scenarios where people need to know if the content was written by a person or a machine.

Benefits of Using an AI Content Detector

If you’re a teacher, site owner, publisher, etc, then you’re going to need to know how much of your team’s written content is original work. Here’s a few reasons why you may need one:

  • Protecting AI-Generated Content from Google: Many writers use AI to help generate content, but they still edit the rough draft to ensure it’s original enough. Still, it helps to run the content through a detector to make sure it won’t ring any alarm bells on Google’s side. The last thing you want to do is be penalized.
  • Catch AI-Generated Content Before Publishing: Book publishers, digital publishers, and content agencies rely on many different writers and freelancers to create the huge stream of content they publish every year. AI detection tools help these companies ensure that each submission is original content (and won’t get the company in trouble).
  • Identify Unoriginal Student Work: In academia, plagiarism and AI-generated papers are becoming a bigger problem now that these tools and resources are readily available online. Teachers wanting to protect the academic integrity of their classes can use AI content detection to make sure each student is doing the work of researching by hand and writing in their own words.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How can I detect AI-written content?

You can use an AI detection tool like Originality.ai or Content at Scale’s free AI detector. These tools even tell you what percentage of the content is generated by AI.

Can Google detect AI-generated text?

Since AI detection tools are becoming mainstream, it’s safe to assume that Google has its own way of determining AI-generated content. They’ve said that if they determine a piece of content to be AI-generated, they will penalize it. If you’re using an AI writing tool or AI marketing tool to help generate content, you’ll want to edit them, so they’re accurate, original, valuable, and in your own voice. You can use an AI content detector to make sure it passes as the original.

Will Google penalize my AI-generated content in search results?

This is a toss-up and I think the world is awaiting what will happen. Google goes against auto-generated content. However, if you can edit your AI-generated content to ensure it’s accurate, original, valuable, and in your own voice, it’ll be more likely to pass as original content. Especially if you just use it to create a quick foundation, but then add in stats, unique perspectives, etc.

Is there an AI Content Detector tool that can recognize content created by ChatGPT?

Yes! Originality.ai, Content at Scale’s AI Detector, Writer’s AI Detector, and Copyleaks all support ChatGPT.

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