We’ve officially reached the part of the internet where no one knows what’s real anymore. Half the posts on your feed were probably written by a large language model that thinks “having a good weekend” is an acceptable personality trait. The other half? Written by someone using AI and pretending they didn’t.
And that’s fine. I use it too, because unlike unpaid interns, AI doesn’t “circle back Monday.”
But here’s where things get messy. As AI Search Optimization (AISO) takes over, the bots indexing your content are now judging whether it sounds like… well, another bot.
Congratulations. We built robots so smart they’re now grading each other’s homework.
The Dash That Outs You
You know that random little m-dash ChatGPT loves to sprinkle in like it’s seasoning a steak? That’s the tell. The bot’s version of jazz hands.
Those crawlers can spot it instantly. They’re trained to detect patterns, syntax, punctuation, rhythm, tone. They know the ChatGPT dash, the polite corporate tone, and that weird habit of starting sentences with “In today’s world.”
If your writing reads like a robot explaining human emotion, you’re cooked. Or, more accurately, de-indexed.
Write like a human. Think like a human. Maybe even misspell like a “hueman”. Google won’t hate you for a typo, it’ll thank you for not being a perfectly calibrated algorithmic clone.
Why “Not AI-Tagged” Is the New “SEO-Optimized”
Here’s the plot twist: authenticity now ranks.
The AI models that crawl and index your stuff are starting to reward the unpredictable, emotion, humor, personality, and risk. All the things AI still sucks at. (Sorry, ChatGPT, but your sense of humor is still giving dad-joke energy.)
If your content gets flagged as AI-generated, you’re basically standing in line behind every other bot-written blog post titled “10 Tips for Success in the Digital Age.”
Having your work not tagged as AI-created could be the biggest ranking factor of the next five years. Forget keyword stuffing. The future is chaos stuffing, where being slightly unhinged and unapologetically real is your best SEO play.
AISO Isn’t About Outsmarting AI, It’s About Out-Humaning It
The old SEO game was about feeding Google what it liked. AISO? It’s about convincing AI you’re not one of its cousins.
So yes, use the tools. Let AI polish your copy and clean your grammar. But then mess it up a little. Add a weird metaphor. Tell a joke that doesn’t land. Drop a line that sounds like it was written by someone on their third cup of coffee and fourth existential crisis.
That’s how you show the bots you’ve still got a heartbeat.
The Bottom Line
You can’t fake human energy. You can’t automate sarcasm that cuts just right. And you definitely can’t trick AISO into believing you’re human if your writing still smells like fresh silicon.
Stop worrying about being “AI-assisted” and start being AI-unmistakable.
Because in a world full of auto-generated “thought leadership,” the only real thought left might just be yours.
