Study estimates 35% of new websites use AI-written text

In short: Researchers estimate that about 35 percent of new websites created from 2022 to 2025 used AI to write some or all of their text.

What's going on

A new research paper, shared online before formal peer review, looks at how much AI-written content is showing up on the web. The team, from Imperial College London, Stanford University, and the Internet Archive, estimates that around 35 percent of new websites are either fully AI-generated or AI-assisted.

To do this, the researchers used the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which stores old “snapshots” of web pages (like a time machine for websites). They also used AI detection tools to guess whether text was written by a person or by an AI system. The researchers say these tools are not perfect, but they tested several options and picked the one that gave the most consistent results.

The study also suggests AI-written pages often sound unusually upbeat. Using sentiment analysis, which scores writing as positive, neutral, or negative (like a mood meter for text), the researchers found AI-generated or AI-assisted sites scored 107 percent higher on positivity than non-AI sites.

Another finding was about sameness. The researchers tested whether AI-made writing reduces the range of viewpoints online, and found AI websites were about 33 percent more similar to each other in meaning than human-written ones.

What to watch

Some common fears did not show up in this data. The study did not find clear evidence that AI writing led to more misinformation, fewer links to other sources, or a more generic writing style. The researchers say this is an early snapshot, and future work will need to check how these patterns change as AI writing tools spread.

Source: Wired