Common AI words to avoid (and what to write instead)
The most common AI words are delve, tapestry, testament, pivotal, crucial, robust, seamless, leverage, foster, navigate, landscape, realm, underscore and showcase, plus stock phrases like "it's important to note". None is wrong on its own. Clustered together, they read as ChatGPT's default voice. Swap them for the plain word you'd actually say.
Most readers can't explain why a paragraph "sounds like AI", but they notice it within a sentence or two, and vocabulary is usually the first thing they catch. This page lists the words and phrases that set it off, gives a plain replacement for each, and explains why deleting them only gets you halfway. The full picture, including sentence rhythm and structure, is in our guide on how to not sound like AI.
What are the most common AI words?
These are the single words that editors, teachers and detector makers point to most often. It isn't a measured frequency ranking. It's the vocabulary that has become shorthand for "a chatbot wrote this". The swaps are deliberately boring, because boring is what most people write when they're just trying to say something.
| AI word | Why it stands out | Write instead |
|---|---|---|
| delve (into) | Rare in speech; the best-known AI tell | look at, dig into, cover |
| tapestry | A metaphor nobody reaches for in everyday writing | mix, range, or just name the things |
| testament (to) | Ceremonial tone for ordinary claims | shows, proves |
| pivotal / crucial / vital | Every point gets the same weight, so none has any | important, or cut it and say why it matters |
| robust | Vague praise | strong, reliable, or the specific quality |
| seamless(ly) | Marketing copy leaking into everything | smooth, easy, without extra steps |
| leverage | Business-speak for a simple verb | use |
| foster | Formal and abstract | build, encourage, help |
| navigate | Everything becomes a journey | deal with, handle, get through |
| landscape / realm | Grand framing for a small topic | field, area, world, or drop it |
| underscore(s) | Stiffer than it needs to be | shows, highlights |
| showcase | Brochure language | show |
| multifaceted / nuanced | Says "it's complicated" without saying how | name the two or three sides |
| comprehensive | Claims completeness it rarely delivers | full, detailed, or cut it |
| enhance / elevate | Improvement with no detail | improve, and say how |
| streamline | Process jargon | simplify, speed up |
| embark (on) | Another journey metaphor | start |
| intricate | Decoration | detailed, complicated |
| moreover / furthermore / additionally | Connector stacking at the start of sentences | also, and, or nothing |
| ultimately | Signals a summary is coming | in the end, or cut it |
| boast(s) | Product-page verb applied to anything | has |
| "game-changer" / "transformative" | Hype with no evidence | say what changed and by how much |
A useful test: if you wouldn't say the word out loud to a friend explaining the same thing, it's a candidate for swapping.
Which AI phrases give text away?
Phrases are often a stronger tell than single words, because they carry the whole default structure with them. These show up constantly in unedited ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini output:
- "It's important to note that…" Just state the thing. If it's important, the reader will notice.
- "In today's fast-paced world…" / "In the ever-evolving landscape of…" Cut the whole opener and start with your first real point.
- "Not only X, but also Y" Once is fine. Three times in a page is a pattern.
- "Whether you're a beginner or an expert…" Writes to everyone, so it speaks to no one. Pick your reader.
- "Let's dive in" / "Let's explore" Announces content instead of giving it.
- "plays a crucial role in" Replace with the actual verb: "controls", "causes", "decides".
- "a rich tapestry of" / "a testament to" See the table; these rarely survive a second read.
- "In conclusion," / "Overall," / "In summary," A short piece doesn't need a label on its last paragraph.
- "I hope this helps!" / "Feel free to…" Chat-window sign-offs that end up pasted into emails and essays.
Punctuation has its own version of this. Heavy em-dash use has become a folk tell, though plenty of human writers love dashes. If a draft has one in every paragraph, vary it with commas, full stops and brackets.
Why does ChatGPT use words like "delve" so much?
Nobody outside the AI labs knows the exact cause, and anyone who tells you it's one thing is guessing. The likely mix: chatbots learned from huge amounts of formal writing, and were then tuned toward answers that sound polished, balanced and safe. Formal, slightly elevated words fit that brief, so they get picked again and again. We go into the rest of the default voice in why ChatGPT sounds robotic.
The effect is measurable, not just a feeling. A 2024 study of more than 15 million biomedical abstracts on PubMed found an abrupt jump in the frequency of certain style words after ChatGPT arrived, and used that excess vocabulary to estimate that at least 13.5% of 2024 abstracts had been processed with a language model (Kobak et al., arXiv 2406.07016). The paper's title starts with "Delving", which tells you which word the authors had in mind.
Will removing AI words stop text being flagged as AI?
Not on its own, and this is where most word lists oversell themselves. AI detectors don't mainly work by scanning for "delve". They estimate how predictable the text is as a whole: how evenly the sentences are built, how safe each word choice is, how little the rhythm varies. A paragraph with every banned word removed can still score as AI if every sentence is 18 words long, every claim is hedged, and it ends with a neat summary.
It works the other way too. People who write formally by habit, or who learned English as a second language, often use these words naturally and still get flagged. Detectors are known to be less reliable on non-native writing (Liang et al., arXiv 2304.02819). If that's you, our guide to making your own writing not sound like AI covers the structural fixes, and how to check if text sounds like AI explains why different detectors disagree.
So treat vocabulary as the first pass, not the whole job:
- Swap the words. Use the table above. Don't hunt for fancier synonyms; go plainer.
- Vary sentence length. Put a short sentence after a long one. Break up any run of three similar-length sentences.
- Cut hedges and summaries. Delete "it's worth noting", "overall" and the recap paragraph if the piece is short.
- Add something only you know. A number, a name, an example from your own work. Chatbots can't invent your specifics, and readers trust them.
- Check it. Read it aloud, or run it through a detector before you send it.
Can you tell ChatGPT to stop using these words?
Yes, and it's worth doing if you draft with AI a lot. Put a ban list in the prompt, or save it in custom instructions so it applies to every chat:
Two caveats. First, the model often swaps a banned word for its cousin ("utilize" for "leverage", "critical" for "crucial"), so read the output rather than trusting the ban. Second, the list tends to fade on long answers. For more prompts built around voice rather than vocabulary, see our ChatGPT prompts to sound human.
If you publish for a brand, the same list doubles as a style-guide banlist. We use it that way in how to humanize AI content for marketing.
What does a before-and-after look like?
Here is a typical unedited AI paragraph, followed by the same content with the vocabulary and structure fixed:
Before: In today's fast-paced world, effective time management plays a crucial role in fostering productivity. By leveraging robust tools and strategies, individuals can seamlessly navigate their busy schedules. Ultimately, it's a testament to the power of intentional planning.
After: Most of my wasted time goes to switching between tasks, not to the tasks themselves. So I block two hours each morning with notifications off. It's a small change, but it's the one that stuck.
The second version didn't just swap words. It dropped the opener, made a specific claim, and added a detail that only the writer could know. That's the difference readers notice.
Is it wrong to use these words at all?
No. "Crucial" is a perfectly good word, and people were delving into things long before chatbots existed. Banning words outright can make your writing stiff in a different way. The issue is density and default: one "pivotal" is a choice, but "pivotal", "tapestry" and "seamless" in one paragraph is a pattern. Keep the words you'd genuinely use, and drop the ones you only use when a machine drafted the sentence.
And if you're editing AI-assisted work for school or a job, the aim is a draft that sounds like you and says what you mean, within whatever rules you're working under, not a draft that hides where it came from.
Frequently asked questions
What words make writing sound like AI?
Delve, tapestry, testament, pivotal, crucial, robust, seamless, leverage, foster, navigate, landscape, realm, underscore and showcase are the usual ones, along with phrases like "it's important to note" and "in today's fast-paced world". They're fine alone; clustered together they read as a chatbot's default voice.
Why does ChatGPT say delve so much?
The exact cause isn't public. The likely mix is training on lots of formal writing plus tuning that rewards polished, safe-sounding answers. The effect has been measured: certain style words rose sharply in scientific abstracts after ChatGPT arrived.
Will removing AI words stop my text being flagged as AI?
Not by itself. Detectors mostly score how predictable the whole text is. Swapping vocabulary helps, but even sentence lengths, hedging and tidy summaries still read as AI. Fix the structure too, then check the result.
Can I tell ChatGPT not to use these words?
Yes. Paste a banned-word list into your prompt or custom instructions. It catches most of the list, but watch for near-synonyms slipping in, and expect the ban to fade on long answers.
Is it wrong to use the word delve?
No. The problem is density. One delve is a word choice; delve plus tapestry plus pivotal in one paragraph is a pattern readers recognise.