AI Data Study: 87% of CNET’s AI Content Is Detectable By A Public Tool

We wanted to find out if AI generated content can replace real journalists & writers.

(TLDR: AI can’t replace real writers, we have the data to prove it!)

Popular media publications like CNET are starting to use AI to help write their content in an effort to reduce costs and increase publishing frequency.

BUT:

Google have already stated they will label AI generated content as spam which can lower search traffic for any site caught using it.

So we decided to run CNET’s AI generated content through a public AI detection tool.

This is what we found:

The fact that it is so easy to detect content generated by AI means there is always the risk of being labelled a spammer by Google or other entities.

Ultimately this means that using AI generated content comes with a huge risk to a websites traffic, email deliverability and revenue alongside the other inherent risks of using AI content such as its accuracy.

87.2% of CNET’s AI content was detectable

In total, 68 of the 78 articles generated by CNET’s AI were detectable by a public tool in our testing:

12.8% of CNET’s AI content was not detectable

We could not detect any AI content in 10 of the 78 articles that we tested from CNET’s AI content production process:

19.2% of CNET’s AI content featured 50%+ of AI writing

15 out of the 78 articles that we tested had at least 50% of their total content written by CNET’s AI engine:

7.7% of CNET’s AI content featured 75%+ of AI writing

Our testing found that 6 of the 78 articles had at least 75% of their total content written by CNET’s AI engine:

Additional Resources

Take a look at the stories below to learn more about how CNET is openly using AI content:

1. CNET Is Quietly Publishing Entire Articles Generated By AI
2. OFFICIAL RESPONSE: CNET Is Experimenting With an AI Assist. Here’s Why
3. CNET pauses publishing AI-written stories after disclosure controversy
4. How To Easily Detect AI Content With Public Tools

Want to learn more about AI tools? Check out my list of best AI SEO tools.

The Testing Process

To conduct this test, we followed a simple process:

1. Download all of the AI content published by CNET (78 articles total)
2. We ran each article through the Originality AI content detection tool (read my Originality.ai review to learn more about the tool)
3. Then recorded the result along with a screenshot

Test Data

You can find A Google sheet with the results here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Yur7kKP5BMWA0eaPBDnJmJ_l9TtWQusNH88khTXkw8A/view

Alternatively, you can refer to the table below: