--- title: "Half the articles. Then the rise stopped." url: https://deadwritingtheory.com/cases/half-the-articles-and-a-plateau/ summary: "A vendor study: primarily AI-generated articles reached about half of new English articles by Q1 2025, then the share stopped rising. Detector-based, not peer reviewed." published: 2026-10-04 updated: 2026-10-04 author: "Jack Stovell" publisher: "Adapt Progress Evolve Limited" language: en-GB --- # Half the articles. Then the rise stopped. A vendor study: primarily AI-generated articles reached about half of new English articles by Q1 2025, then the share stopped rising. Detector-based, not peer reviewed. **Case No. DWT-006: Half the articles, and a plateau.** Split verdict. Filed 4 October 2026. - **The question:** What share of new English articles on the web are primarily AI-generated, and how has that share changed since January 2020? - **The sample:** 55.4k random English article URLs from Common Crawl, published between January 2020 and March 2026, each scored by three commercial AI detectors (Pangram, Copyleaks, GPTZero) and averaged - **The study:** Jose Luis Paredes, Gregory Druck, Bevin Benson, Ethan Smith (Graphite (an SEO and growth agency)), "AI Now Writes as Many Online Articles as Humans", Graphite research (Five Percent), 2026. https://graphite.io/five-percent/research/ai-now-writes-as-many-online-articles-as-humans-do - **Whose study:** Third-party study (vendor study). Not our study. Entered into evidence from Jose Luis Paredes, Gregory Druck, Bevin Benson, Ethan Smith, Graphite (an SEO and growth agency). - **Peer review:** Not peer reviewed: a vendor study ## Findings of fact 1. After only 12 months, primarily AI-generated articles accounted for 35.9% of articles published. 2. In Q1 2025, primarily AI-generated articles nearly equalled human-written ones: 49.6% against 50.4%. 3. In Q4 2025, primarily AI-generated articles passed human-written ones at 50.9%, before returning to 49.9% in Q1 2026. 4. Since Q1 2025, the share of primarily AI-generated articles has plateaued at roughly 50%. 5. False positive rates on articles from before ChatGPT: Pangram 1.844%, Copyleaks 1.836%, GPTZero 1.355%. ## Caveats for the jury - A vendor study: Graphite sells SEO and AEO (answer engine optimisation) services, so incentives are in the room. - It relies on three commercial AI detectors. - The "primarily AI" cut-off is binary, so AI drafts edited by people are not measured separately. - The claim that these articles largely do not appear in Google and ChatGPT comes from a separate Graphite study, not reviewed here. ## The court reporter's account Now a vendor, and I'm flagging it because the site flags it. Paredes, Druck, Benson and Smith work at Graphite, an SEO and growth agency. Their May 2026 piece is titled "AI Now Writes as Many Online Articles as Humans". Not academic, then, and you should weigh it that way. Anyway, the method is worth a look. They took 55.4k random English article URLs from Common Crawl, published between January 2020 and March 2026. Each one went through three commercial AI detectors (Pangram, Copyleaks and GPTZero) and the scores were averaged. They also measured false-positive rates on pre-ChatGPT articles: 1.844%, 1.836% and 1.355%. The finding has a shape, which I like. After only 12 months, primarily AI-generated articles were 35.9% of articles published. In Q1 2025 it was 49.6% against 50.4% human. Then 50.9% in Q4 2025, and 49.9% in Q1 2026. Since Q1 2025 the share has plateaued at roughly 50%. So it climbed fast, then stopped. That's the interesting bit. Everyone's been shouting about the flood, and this says the water level stopped rising, at about half. There's a second claim, from a separate Graphite study: these articles largely do not appear in Google and ChatGPT. If that holds, a lot of the machine output is being published and then ignored. Which, for anyone selling content, is a slightly awkward thing to read. Caveats, because they matter. It's a vendor, so incentives are in the room. It's detector-based. And the "primarily AI" cut-off is binary, so it doesn't measure human-edited AI drafts, which is where plenty of agency work sits. I guess that's you and me. Half the web, then, but a half that may not be getting read. Verdict: split. ## The exhibits entered in this case ### For the prosecution - **Exhibit P-9**: Machine-written articles drew level with human ones. **50.9%** of new English articles primarily AI-generated, Q4 2025. 49.6% against 50.4% human in Q1 2025. Vendor study: 55.4k Common Crawl articles, three commercial detectors averaged. ### For the defence - **Exhibit D-10**: The machine share stopped rising. **49.9%** of new articles primarily AI-generated, Q1 2026. "Since Q1 2025 the percentage of primarily AI-generated articles has plateaued at roughly 50%." Vendor study, detector-based. ## The finding A vendor study: primarily AI-generated articles reached about half of new English articles by Q1 2025, then the share stopped rising. Detector-based, not peer reviewed. ## Sources - [Paredes et al., "AI Now Writes as Many Online Articles as Humans", Graphite research (Five Percent), 2026 (the original study)](https://graphite.io/five-percent/research/ai-now-writes-as-many-online-articles-as-humans-do) ## Questions people ask ### Is half the web written by AI now? Half of new English articles, by this vendor study. Graphite found primarily AI-generated articles at 49.6% against 50.4% human in Q1 2025, 50.9% in Q4 2025 and 49.9% in Q1 2026. It measures articles in its Common Crawl sample, not the whole web. ### Is AI writing still growing? Not on this evidence. Graphite says that since Q1 2025 the share of primarily AI-generated articles has plateaued at roughly 50%. ### Why is it marked as a vendor study? Graphite is an SEO and growth agency, so the study comes from a company that sells related services, and it is not peer reviewed. It also relies on three commercial AI detectors, whose false positive rates it reports: 1.844%, 1.836% and 1.355%.