01 Why a tracker, not a list
Every framework that lists "AI tell words" is a snapshot. The words that gave away ChatGPT in 2023 are largely suppressed now. OpenAI heard the criticism about "delve" and trained it down. Most of the 2023 vocabulary cluster has either faded or vanished from current output. The 2025 to 2026 GPT-5 era looks fundamentally different from what people warn against in older guides.
That means a static word list is wrong twice. It flags words that no longer fire. It misses the words that fire now.
This page solves both problems. Each entry is tagged with the era it was active, its current status, and a plain-English replacement. Updated every quarter. When a major model release happens, an immediate review goes in.
Bookmark it.
02 Current era vocabulary
| Word or Phrase | Era Active | Current Status | Replace With |
|---|---|---|---|
| delve | 2023 to early 2024 | Suppressed | dig into, look at, get into |
| underscore | 2023 to 2024 | Suppressed | show, prove, highlight |
| tapestry | 2023 to 2025 | Fading | mix, combination, range |
| camaraderie | 2023 to 2025 | Active | friendship, teamwork |
| palpable | 2023 to 2025 | Active | you can feel it, obvious |
| intricate | 2023 to 2025 | Active | complex, detailed, specific |
| robust | 2023 to ongoing | Active | strong, reliable, solid |
| leverage (verb) | 2023 to ongoing | Active | use, apply, build on |
| utilize | 2023 to ongoing | Active | use |
| holistic | 2023 to ongoing | Active | complete, full, integrated |
| seamlessly | 2023 to ongoing | Active | smoothly, without friction |
| nuanced | 2023 to ongoing | Active | complex (describe the complexity) |
| multifaceted | 2023 to ongoing | Active | describe the facets specifically |
| paradigm | 2023 to ongoing | Active | describe what actually changed |
| testament | 2023 to ongoing | Active | proof, evidence, sign |
| foster | 2023 to ongoing | Active | build, support, encourage |
| paramount | 2023 to ongoing | Active | most important, critical |
| furthermore | 2023 to ongoing | Active | also, and |
| moreover | 2023 to ongoing | Active | also, and, beyond that |
| showcase | 2024 to ongoing | Active | show, feature, demonstrate |
| emphasizing (tailing) | 2025 to ongoing | Active | cut the tail entirely |
| enhance | 2025 to ongoing | Active | improve, strengthen, add to |
| highlighting (tailing) | 2025 to ongoing | Active | cut the tail entirely |
| showcasing (tailing) | 2025 to ongoing | Active | cut the tail entirely |
| pivotal | 2023 to ongoing | Active | important, turning point |
| landscape | 2023 to ongoing | Active | field, industry, environment |
| journey (metaphorical) | 2023 to ongoing | Active | process, experience, path |
| game-changer | 2023 to ongoing | Active | describe what actually changed |
| resonate | 2023 to ongoing | Active | click, stick, hit home |
03 The 2025 to 2026 GPT-5 era fingerprint
The current cluster is shifting from vocabulary tells toward structural tells. The era of single-word giveaways is fading. The era of structural pattern giveaways is here.
What that looks like in practice: tailing participial clauses ("improving convenience," "emphasizing the significance," "underscoring the importance"), parallel negation overuse ("it's not about X, it's about Y"), and significance inflation that attaches mundane subjects to broader movements ("a defining moment in regional logistics evolution").
If you're scanning for current AI output, vocabulary alone won't catch it. You need to be looking at sentence shape and rhetorical scaffolding.
Single-word tells are easier for model providers to suppress because they're easier to identify and tune out. Structural tells are harder. They emerge from how the model assembles thoughts, not from a vocabulary list it was told to avoid.
That means the next era's detection battle will be fought at the sentence-shape level, not the word level. The vocabulary table is becoming the floor. The structural patterns are the ceiling.
04 The cluster principle
One tell is a word choice. Three in a single post is a pattern. Five is a verdict. Don't use this table to flag individual words in isolation. Run the whole piece.
Every word in the Active column shows up in human writing too. "Robust" is a perfectly normal word. "Leverage" is fine in the right context. The signal isn't the presence of any single word. It's the density when several show up together.
If you spot one Active word in a piece, that's nothing. Three Active words plus a tailing participial clause plus a parallel negation construction is a different story. The cluster is the verdict.
05 How to use this for your own writing
Scan the draft
Before you publish AI-assisted content, run a find-in-page on each Active word. Mark every instance.
Replace in
Swap each flagged word for the plain-English alternative. The Replace column is the playbook. Don't paraphrase the phrase, swap the word.
Read for structure
The table only catches vocabulary. Read again for tailing clauses and "not X, it's Y" constructions. Those are the structural tells.
The vocabulary list is the fastest pass. Five minutes of find-and-replace removes the easiest tells. The structural pass takes longer because you have to read with intention. Together they catch most of what gives AI writing away.
Want the full detection system?
Vocabulary is one layer. The complete framework methodology covers structural, observational, and editorial tells across every model era.
Start at HowToFramework.com06 What this has to do with frameworks
A static word list goes stale because the problem it's solving changes every quarter. Models update. Suppression policies shift. The vocabulary cluster moves. A 2023 list scanned against 2026 content produces false negatives because the words it flags aren't the words being produced.
A framework doesn't go stale the same way. It's a way of thinking about the problem, not a catalog of point-in-time answers. The vocabulary tracker is updated quarterly because the words change. The framework underneath, scan for clusters, replace with specifics, read for structure, doesn't have to change.
That's why this page is a tool, not a verdict. The list updates. The methodology doesn't.
It's an output of framework methodology applied to one specific problem. The same methodology applies to anything you do that needs to stay current as conditions shift: SEO, sales scripts, hiring filters, content calendars. The vocabulary tracker is one example of what living frameworks look like.