On LinkedIn, AI Is Gradually Replacing Human Influencers (And No One Has Noticed)

A company decided to analyse over 8000 LinkedIn posts and found a major increase in the use of artificial intelligence.

Originality.ai, a company that has produced a tool that can detect whether a text was written by AI with an alleged accuracy of 99%, has analyzed thousands of LinkedIn posts. They found a significant increase in the amount of posts that had been written with AI, along with a longer average post length. 

You're not alone if you feel that you are encountering more and more AI-generated content online. The professional social network, LinkedIn, is no exception. According to a recent study by Originality.ai, more than half of posts on the platform are already being created using tools such as ChatGPT. 

Using its AI detection tool, Originality.ai looked at 8795 posts that had over 100 words on LinkedIn, published between January 2018 and October 2024, to observe AI usage trends. The study found that between January and February 2023, the amount of AI-generated posts on LinkedIn increased by 189%. "After this significant rise in February 2023, we observe a stabilization, which may indicate a new normal for LinkedIn content creation, where approximately half of the content could be AI-generated," the report from Originality.ai states.

As of now, more than half of long form posts on the professional social network are suspected of being written by AI. For posts from October 2024, 54% of the analyzed content is likely AI-generated. But that's not all, generative AI has also influenced the length of posts on LinkedIn.

As the volume of AI-generated content on LinkedIn has grown, the length of posts (measured in word count) has also increased. The company behind the study notes "a correlation between the word count of a LinkedIn long-form post and the presumed presence of AI over time." If AI is generating the content, it takes little additional time for the post to be longer, than if it was written by a human. 

The trend of more AI-generated content on LinkedIn raises questions about authenticity and engagement on the platform. As AI tools become increasingly sophisticated, it is becoming much harder to distinguish between human written content and AI content.