The 47 Words That Make Your Text Sound AI-Written (And What to Use Instead)

David Musienko — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:30:18 +0000

You can spot AI-written text in one sentence. Not because AI is bad at writing — it isn't — but because it reaches for the same 47 words every time.

"We leverage cutting-edge solutions to seamlessly empower your team to unlock their full potential."

That sentence was written by nobody. It has the shape of meaning without the substance. Readers feel it instantly, even if they can't explain why.

Here's the full list — organized by type, with plain-English replacements — so you can clean your copy before it goes out.

The AI-Speak Hall of Shame

These are the highest-frequency offenders. If your text contains any of these, it probably sounds AI-written.

Action words that mean nothing

Word	Replace with
leverage	use
empower	help, enable
unlock	open, give access to
unleash	release, use
harness	use, apply
streamline	improve, simplify
revolutionize	change, transform
dive into	look at, explore
delve into	look at, explore

The test: can you replace the word with "use" or "help" without losing anything? Then the original word was filler.

Adjectives that pad without adding

Word	Replace with
cutting-edge	new, modern, current
best-in-class	excellent, top, leading
world-class	excellent
robust	strong, reliable
holistic	complete, full
game-changing	significant, important
seamlessly	(remove it — things either work or they don't)

The test: if you remove the adjective and the sentence means the same thing, the adjective was decorating, not describing.

Phrases that delay the point

Phrase	Replace with
it's important to note that	(delete — then say the thing)
it's worth noting that	(delete)
at the end of the day	(delete)
in today's fast-paced landscape	today / now
in conclusion	(delete — your conclusion should be obvious)
to summarize	(delete)
needless to say	(delete — if it's needless, don't say it)
that being said	(delete)
with that in mind	(delete)
having said that	(delete)
as mentioned earlier	(delete)
it goes without saying	(delete)

These phrases are throat-clearing. They signal that something important is coming, without making that something more important. Cut them and start with the substance.

Hedges that undermine your credibility

Phrase	Effect	Fix
I think	Makes you sound uncertain	State the claim directly
I believe	Same	Same
sort of	Weakens the point	Remove or commit
kind of	Same	Same
basically	Condescending or vague	Remove
essentially	Same	Remove

If you're writing "I think the product is good," you either believe it or you don't. "The product is good" is more honest.

Why AI defaults to these words

AI models are trained on a huge corpus of text that includes a lot of marketing copy, corporate communications, and SEO content — all of which overuse the same vocabulary. The model learns that "leverage" appears near business context, that "cutting-edge" appears near tech products, and so on.

It's not that the model thinks these words are good. It's that they pattern-match to the training data.

The result: AI-generated text is statistically average. It writes the way the average piece of writing about that topic has been written before.

Human writing sounds human because it's specific. "We cut deploy time by 40%" is specific. "We leverage cutting-edge DevOps solutions to seamlessly streamline your workflow" is the statistical average of a thousand press releases.

A fast way to clean your text

The manual pass: after writing anything, do a find-and-replace for the 10 worst offenders: leverage, cutting-edge, seamlessly, empower, unlock, holistic, robust, game-changing, "it's important to note", "at the end of the day." That catches most of the slop.

The tool pass: paste your text into De-Slop — it scans for all 47 terms and flags them in about two seconds. Free, no login, works offline.

The Claude Code pass: if you use Claude Code, the /anti-slop skill does this semantically — it rewrites awkward replacements, not just find-and-replace. Free download here.

The real rule

Every word should earn its place. If you remove it and the sentence means the same thing, remove it.

"We help teams ship faster" beats "We leverage cutting-edge AI to seamlessly empower your team to unlock their full shipping potential" in every possible dimension: clarity, trust, length, memorability.

The goal isn't to sound smart. It's to be understood.

De-Slop is a free browser tool that removes AI-speak from any text. Try it here →

The /anti-slop Claude Code skill does the same thing inside your workflow. Free download →

The Solopreneur Skills Pack includes 4 more tested Claude Code skills for solo builders — $24 one-time.

DEV Community: David Musienko