What are AI tells in writing?
Definition
AI tells are patterns that make writing read as unedited AI output: overused words, formulaic openers, heavy hedging, uniform sentences, and habitual triads.
No single tell proves a machine wrote something; people use all of these patterns too. Together they create a recognizable texture. Common examples include stock vocabulary like "delve" and "tapestry", openers like "In today's fast-paced world", reflexive hedges such as "it's important to note", sentences of nearly identical length, and ideas grouped in threes out of habit.
Tells matter less because readers or search engines might detect AI, and more because they signal generic writing, which underperforms whoever wrote it. Editing them out is part of humanization, but it is the surface layer. Removing "delve" does not add a fact, a source, or a point of view; those come from the editor. A good editor reads for the patterns, then asks what each passage is actually trying to say.
Why does it matter to your business?
Readers skim past writing that sounds like everything else. Spotting tells is a quick way to find the passages that most need a human edit.
Related terms
Last reviewed September 11, 2026 by Joseph Nicholas Abear.
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