Best Free AI content detectors in 2024
Did you know that over 90% of online users can’t tell the difference between AI-generated content and human-written content? But search engines can! And that’s where free AI content detectors come into play. That will help you to stand out.
You will find in this article everything you need to know about AI content detectors from A to Z.
What is an AI detector?
An AI detector is a AI powered tool that identifies whether a piece of content has been created by artificial intelligence tools or a human.
Why do You Need AI Content Detectors? Which big Problem is it solving?
Every creator online wants to create more content. AI tools can write quickly and in massive quantities. Software like ChatGPT, Claude AI, Gemini, Microsoft copilot and many others have become popular to generate AI text. But there’s a problem…
Their content often lacks the human touch that readers love. You know, search engines like Google are getting better at detecting AI-generated text and might even penalize content that’s clearly not original.
It’s not that Google forbids people from using AI, but it doesn’t want your content to look like it was written by AI. Do you see the difference?
It doesn’t want contents that are garbage by their lack of value and are unhelpful to readers, and contents that are a copy of what’s already on the internet.
Google aims to give people what they want, and unsurprisingly, most people don’t prefer content that feels like it was written by AI. So you must avoid AI patterns in your content.
The secret to pleasing both, algorithms and humans, is to use AI in moderation, add your original human touches even when using AI, and make sure it reads more like human-written content than AI-generated text.
That’s where AI content detectors come in. They help you to make sure your work feels human written, which keeps both your readers and search engines happy.
For content creators and business owners, this means your blog posts, articles, ebook or product descriptions will have a higher chance of ranking well in search results or just being liked by people.
You don’t want to risk your content being flagged as AI-written, especially when you’re trying to connect with your audience on a deeper level.
How to Use AI Content Detectors Effectively
So, how do you actually use these tools?
It’s simple, after generating your content with AI tools like ChatGPT, Merlin, Claude, Gemini or another tool, you add it through an AI content detector tool and see if it passes the “human test.”
They detect AI written patterns and gives you a detailed report on what looks AI-made. The most basic stat all AI detectors give is a percentage of the human part and/or AI part.
After getting the results, you can either revise the flagged sections or, if everything looks good, you can copy and publish with confidence.
Some tools also give suggestions for making your content sound more human, so you’re not just left guessing. It’s called the AI Humanizer feature. Another way to reduce the AI detection percentage is to add your experiences and human ways of thinking.
Thanks to all that, you can optimize your content before your readers (or Google’s algorithms) even see it.
Best free AI Content Detectors You Can Use
Let’s look at some of the top free AI content detectors available today.
6. GPTZero:
GPTZero is known for its accuracy.
GPTZero was designed to identify AI-generated text. It’s free to use and gives you a quick overview of whether your content looks like it was written by an AI.
It’s not mandatory to create an account to use it.
You can update a text of up to 5,000 characters at once for free, and do up to 7 free scan a day if you don’t have an account.
If you have an account it’s still 5,000 characters per scan but up to 10,000 words a month. In the premium version which starts at $10 you will have 50,000 characters per scan and up to 150.000 words a month.
Or, if you prefer, you can upload files. The supported file formats are .pdf, .doc, .docx, and .txt.
After that, you can scan and you will quickly see the probability (percentage) of human writing, AI writing and the mix of AI + Human sections.
Oh, by the way, If you’re wondering about the accuracy, according to our tests, it’s very accurate. On top of that, it’s easy and straightforward, without unnecessary steps. But honestly, there are better t tools in term of capacity.
While it has a paid version, the free version is still highly useful. It’s accurate and you can scan without an Account. But you have to sign up to get an in-depth report on potential AI content in your text. Unfortunately you only have up to 300 words at once for free. That’s very low.
Their interface is one of the most beautiful, it’s user friendly, they are competent, do a lot of research and study to improve their detector.
We recommend the paid version of this tool for any content and the free version only to scan short text. Because if you have long content to check, it’s not a wise choice to use the free version, since the number of words is so few.
That’s the surfer free AI Detector and AI Content Humanizer that you can find for free on their website, even though Surfer is a paid seo tool. It’s actually one of the best on the market, and their free AI detector is effective as you can guess.
You can scan up to 500 words at once, you have unlimited AI detection for free and you can humanize up to 20,000 words at once.
So their advantage is the humanizer feature and unlimited free AI detection.
As the previous tool, the free version is great only for short text, it will be way more easy to get the paid version for longer.
Merlin is an AI extension that opens a sidebar on search engines and assists you as a chat bot.
It can assist you to write as well on gmail, X and Linkedin.
But on their website, you can find a free AI detector and AI checker.
You can check up to 10,000 characters at once, with no need to sign up. That’s between 1,400 and 2,500 words with space.
It’s not the most accurate on this list, but they offer something very rare that others don’t give for free. Here it is: Merlin shows you exactly which lines are considered as written by AI. They highlight those in yellow, which is pretty cool.
That’s not their only competitive advantage. Merlin supports over 128 languages, including English, Spanish, and French. That’s not bad.
Well, when it comes to improving your writing with software, Grammarly has been for decades a leader. It helps correct your mistakes, check students plagiarism, or even change your writing style. It’s popular among educators and students but can be used by anyone.
So it’s logical that they have an AI detector that people may use for free, with no signup needed as well. But it’s extremely basic, they just give you a straightforward conclusion of the percentage of it written by AI or being human.
You can scan text up to 2000 words at once for free, you see that it’s minuscule in you compare to Quillbot, but that’s still very high according to other competitors. Not kidding!
Unfortunately, for now, you can only check text and can’t upload files. What’s weird is that you can use that for free, only if you are not signed up, but when you do they will say it’s a premium feature.
At least for free it seems to allow unlimited use.
They explained that Grammarly’s AI detector can identify text produced with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot.
According to our test, it’s accurate as well. Not surprised, Grammarly is faithful to its reputation.
1. Quillbot
It’s one of the best free AI detectors on the market. We are done, you may move to the next point or go use it.
Okay seems like you want more details, we understand.
This tool scans for plagiarism and AI-written text in seconds. Let’s focus on the AI feature.
You can scan up to 25,000 words for free at once. WOW, WOW, WOW! Let me tell you that it’s way higher than their competitor. That’s something that other AI detectors offer only on their paid plan and will never dream of giving it away for free.
Okay great but is it accurate and effective? Indeed that’s the big question. The answer is a big YES.
They will give you the percentage of AI-generated parts, AI-generated & AI-refined, Human-written & AI-refined and Human-written. There are English, French, Spanish and German.
You can add text or upload text and do unlimited scan at no cost.
They also have this feature that highlight parts that it thinks it’s written with AI to help you modify.
The design is amazing too.
AIBusinessLift gives it the trophy of being the king of free AI detector tools.
It’s the TOTAL PACKAGE; you won’t even feel the need to pay.
The Limits of AI Content Detectors
While AI detectors are great tools, they aren’t perfect. There are times when they might mistakenly flag human-written content as AI-generated, especially if the writing is too structured or formulaic. This means that even if your content is 100% original, it might still require tweaking to pass through the detector.
Another limit is the technology itself. AI detectors are constantly evolving, just like AI writing tools. As both continue to improve, it might become harder to detect subtle AI-generated text, meaning you’ll need to stay on top of the latest updates in both areas.
You will see disclaimer like this one on those tools :
“Our AI Detector is advanced, but no detectors are 100% reliable, no matter what their accuracy scores claim. Never use AI detection alone to make decisions that could impact a person’s career or academic standing.” Quillbot.
But if you ask us, they are very effective and worthy of our trust. We did a lot of testing, changed stuff written by AI to make it look human, then removed the AI pattern. And the more it felt human to us, the more it felt human to those AI detectors. When we wrote without AI, they weren’t shy to say that we detect 0% AI content. And when we used AI even for a small text, they will say, oh that’s 98% AI generated.
Who AI Content Detectors Are For
AI content detectors aren’t just for professional writers. They’re for anyone who uses AI to create text online. If you’re a copywriter, a blogger, or an entrepreneur working on digital marketing, these tools can be your secret weapon. Even business owners who hire writers can benefit by ensuring the content they pay for is unique.
Think about it. As a content creator, you want your audience to trust you. People want to read engaging, original content that speaks to them, not something that feels automated. Using AI detectors gives you peace of mind that your words are authentic.
An interesting advantage is speed. These tools work in seconds. Just paste the text, hit ‘check,’ and you’ll know right away if your content looks suspiciously robotic. This allows you to quickly make any necessary changes, ensuring your post reads naturally and is ready for publication.
In conclusion, If you want to create high-quality, original content that resonates with your audience and avoids AI flags or make your audience feel like it’s human-written, then AI content detectors are an essential solution. They’re fast, efficient, and here we gave many free ones! Your welcome! So next time you generate content using any AI tools, run it through one of these detectors to make sure it’s up to human standards and search engine. Happy content creation!
