AI-generated content hits 55% of new articles but growth stalls

AI-generated content now accounts for over half of all newly published articles on the internet, according to a new report from Graphite, an SEO research firm. However, the surge appears to be plateauing as content creators discover that AI-written articles perform poorly in search rankings, suggesting the digital landscape may be self-correcting against automated content.

What you should know: The proportion of AI-generated articles peaked at 55% in January 2025 but has since stabilized rather than continuing to grow exponentially.

• AI content slightly overtook human-written articles between November 2024 and March 2025, marking a significant shift in online publishing.
• The researchers don’t expect the flood of AI-generated articles to continue at previous rates due to poor search performance.
• Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT release in 2022, AI-generated content has grown from virtually nonexistent to representing 39% of published articles by late 2023.

Why this matters: The plateau suggests market forces and search algorithms are naturally limiting AI content proliferation, even as the technology becomes more sophisticated.

• Graphite hypothesizes that practitioners found AI-generated articles do not perform well in search, as shown in a separate study.
• The irony is apparent: AI-powered search engines like Google appear trained to identify and deprioritize AI-generated content.
• This creates a feedback loop where publishers may abandon AI content strategies due to poor visibility and engagement.

The detection challenge: Despite AI content’s poor search performance, identifying machine-generated text is becoming increasingly difficult as the technology improves.

• AI-generated articles aren’t appearing prominently in Google search results or ChatGPT responses, despite their prevalence.
• Content detection tools are improving at a similar pace to AI writing capabilities, creating an ongoing technological arms race.
• The rapid improvement of AI writing may soon make detection nearly impossible, even with advanced detection systems.

Public trust remains low: Most Americans avoid AI-generated news sources, with trust concerns driving skepticism about automated content.

• Only 2% of Americans regularly consume news from AI sources, according to recent Pew Research Center findings.
• A substantial 75% of Americans report never getting news from AI platforms.
• Those who do consume AI-generated news express doubts about the reliability and accuracy of the information.