How to Detect AI Writing — and Ethically Optimize Your Own AI-Generated Content
AI tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, and Claude are helping entrepreneurs and small business owners write faster than ever. But with the rise of AI-generated content comes a growing concern: how can you tell if something was written by AI? And more importantly, how can you ethically use AI to create content that sounds human, original, and aligned with your brand?
In this guide, we’ll explore how AI detection works, the top tools used to detect AI writing, and how to polish your own content to ensure it reads naturally—even if it started with AI.
How Does AI Detection Work?
AI detectors analyze written content to look for patterns commonly produced by large language models, also known as LLMs. They assess things like:
Perplexity: This measures how predictable the text is based on statistical models. AI tends to produce text that is very predictable because it selects the most likely next word or phrase. Human writing, on the other hand, is typically more varied and less predictable, which results in lower perplexity scores in AI-generated text.
Burstiness: This refers to the variation in sentence length and structure throughout a piece of writing. Human writers tend to alternate between long, complex sentences and short, punchy ones. AI writing, however, often exhibits consistent rhythm and structure, which can make it sound monotonous or overly uniform.
Repetition and tone: AI often writes in overly smooth, evenly structured ways that differ from human patterns. Real humans tend to express in more varied and illustrative ways!
Popular AI content detectors include:
Turnitin (commonly used in academics & education)
While each tool uses slightly different models and criteria, but the goal is the same: to determine whether a piece of writing was likely generated by AI.
Why Business Owners Should Care
If you’re using AI for your marketing (publishing blogs, email newsletters, social media posts, etc), it’s worth understanding how your content might be perceived.
SEO & visibility: Some platforms and search engines may deprioritize content that appears AI-written or unoriginal
Credibility: Readers can usually tell when content sounds robotic, especially if it just dishes out generic advice
Brand trust: Content that lacks a human voice can erode trust with your customers and clients
Plagiarism risk: AI-written content may mimic other sources (ie. a competitor’s website) too closely without attribution
How to Check if Something Was Written by AI
If you’re unsure whether content was created by a human or an AI (including your own drafts), here are a few steps to check:
Run the content through an AI content detector like GPTZero or Originality.ai
Review for overly smooth structure, generic tone, or lack of real-world examples
Compare it to your past writing—does it sound like you?
Remember, even high-quality content can sometimes get flagged. We’ve run 100% human written content through some ai detection tools and it’s been flagged as “likely ai written”! So just know that these tools aren’t perfect!
GPTZero AI Detection Example
Ethical Use of AI for Content Creation
AI can absolutely be used ethically and effectively in business. The key is to use artificial intelligence as a collaborator, not a replacement.
Smart business owners use AI to:
Generate first drafts
Brainstorm blog ideas or headlines
Speed up repetitive tasks
Repurpose long-form content into short-form assets
But the final product should always reflect your insights, your voice, and your values.
Optimizing AI Content with Tools Like Undetectable AI
Here’s where tools like Undetectable AI come in. They help you improve content that was written by AI by:
Improving readability
Adjusting the tone and sentence structure
Masking AI-like patterns to reduce detection risk
Undetectable AI doesn’t just help you "fool" detectors — it helps you produce content that feels real, even if the first draft was written by AI. It’s ideal for:
Website copy
Blog posts
Email newsletters
Social media captions
When used responsibly, Undetectable AI is a great companion to tools like ChatGPT. You can let AI do the heavy lifting, and then use Undetectable AI to polish your content so it’s uniquely yours.
AI Detection with Undetectable AI
Final Thoughts: Use AI Smarter, Not Harder
AI is here to stay, and when used well, it can help you create better content in less time. But the goal isn’t to hide the fact you used AI — it’s to make sure your content is clear, compelling, and connected to your audience.
Use AI tools to get the work started. Use your voice and editing to make it shine.
And when you want a little extra polish? Try Undetectable AI to make your AI-generated content sound more human, original, and totally on-brand!