AI words to avoid (and what to write instead)
Updated June 10, 2026
Some words became AI tells so fast that editors now flinch at them. Here's the working list — words, phrases and constructions — plus the honest caveat about word-lists, and the fix that actually works.
The single words
The headliners, roughly in order of notoriety: delve, tapestry, crucial, comprehensive, multifaceted, leverage (as a verb), seamless, robust, pivotal, foster, harness, elevate, intricate, realm, testament, underscore, embark, navigate (metaphorically), landscape (metaphorically), journey (metaphorically). Academic studies of post-2022 text found some of these words' frequencies jumped severalfold — "delve" became the canonical example after researchers tracked its explosion in published abstracts.
None of these is wrong. Humans wrote "crucial" for centuries. The tell is density: three per paragraph reads generated.
The phrases
- Openers: "In today's fast-paced world…", "In the ever-evolving landscape of…", "In the realm of…"
- Hedges: "It's important to note that…", "It's worth mentioning…", "While X, it's essential to Y…"
- Drumrolls: "Let's dive in", "Let's explore", "Without further ado"
- The not-just construction: "It's not just about X — it's about Y" (once per document, maybe; models do it hourly)
- Closers: "In conclusion…", "Ultimately…", "As we've seen…", anything starting "Overall,"
The constructions
Beyond vocabulary: the compulsive triad ("faster, smarter, and more efficient"), em-dash overuse as all-purpose glue, paragraphs that each end by summarizing themselves, and the both-sides survey that never lands on a claim. These are harder to ctrl-F and matter more — they're the structural layer detectors actually measure.
The caveat about word lists
Deleting "delve" doesn't make text human — word-swapping is exactly the paraphrasing fallacy. The list is a smoke alarm, not a fire extinguisher: if your draft is dense with these, the sentence architecture underneath is almost certainly model-shaped too. The working fix is the full pass — restructure the rhythm, keep facts verbatim, verify the score, and put one sentence of actual you in it. The words fix themselves on the way.