Usually, I tend to skip over such articles since they mostly feature affiliate content, but this one actually contained a test procedure, results on 750 texts (600 AI-involved texts from the GEDE dataset and 150 human texts).
The tool that stood out for me in this comparison was Clever AI Detector.
It boasts an overall score of 96.7%, correctly identifying 100% of direct AI outputs and remaining above 90% for rewritten/humanized and AI-edited texts.
It’s also one of the few free tools (unlike most of the competition). You don’t need to log in, there are no word limits, and you can check up to 10,000 words at a time.
I decided to try it out: Clever AI Detector
I ran a few tests on some of my own texts and compared them to some AI-generated and AI-edited ones. In my little experiment, Clever was surprisingly accurate. My human texts identified as human, while the AI ones were flagged, even when I edited them.
Of course, my little test isn’t anything serious, but it did make me trust the listed results even more.
The comparison itself is also interesting. Some very well-known detectors did rather poorly when it came to identifying text that didn’t come straight from an AI.
For example:
Originality.ai Lite had a detection rate of only 51.3% on humanized AI text
Winston AI had a detection rate of 44.7%
QuillBot had a detection rate of 22%
GPTZero detected only 7.3% of AI-rewritten and 1.3% of AI-improved human text in this particular test
ZeroGPT had only 0.7% of strict detection on humanized AI text
Copyleaks was the closest to Clever in this comparison and a great choice overall. It boasts a solid 95% detection in the test, but requires payment to use. Clever on the other hand has a slightly higher overall detection rate (96.7%), was better overall across the categories that mattered (the worst-case scenarios), and is completely free.
The whole table with a description of the test procedures and results can be found here: AI detector comparison and benchmark
I am still on the fence about most AI detectors being reliable enough as proof that someone used an AI to generate or edit their text. I think most of these tools could have their results improved upon and can make plenty of errors.
In the light of this benchmark, however, and having personally used Clever AI Detector to test my texts, I would probably recommend it first for now. It’s hard to find a tool that combines such great results with total freedom of use (no payment or limits).