Pew study confirms sharp rise of AI-written text on the web since ChatGPT's launch
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Pew Research Center analyzed nearly half a million English-language web pages from Common Crawl and found that more than a third of pages published after ChatGPT's launch show signs of AI-generated text. In a July 2026 sample, about 10 percent of all pages examined showed clear signs of AI authorship. Commercial .com domains contain AI-generated text roughly ten times more often than .edu or .gov sites. The analysis also documented sharp increases in AI-typical language patterns, such as em dashes, Oxford commas, and words like "delve" and "pivotal." A separate April 2026 study by Imperial College London, the Internet Archive, and Stanford University similarly found that about 35 percent of newly published websites were fully or partly AI-generated. However, the article notes limitations: current detection tools cannot reliably distinguish between fully automated text and partially AI-assisted writing, and the definition of "AI text" remains fuzzy. The piece also mentions that public debate around AI text is polarized, with stigma attached to AI tool use in both directions.
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