The uneven rise of AI-generated web content

Authors: Adam Visokay , Soumyakanti Pan , Molly Griston , Polina Iasakova , Mark Nepf , Denis Peskoff , Riya Sinha , Jikai Sun , Isabelle Thiara , Letao Wang , Yiwei Wu , Lauren Yan , Tyler H. McCormick

View a PDF of the paper titled The uneven rise of AI-generated web content, by Adam Visokay and 12 other authors

View PDF

HTML (experimental)

Abstract: In less than five years, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has dramatically reshaped the public-facing web. Using a sample of more than 5 million crawlable webpages, we demonstrate that the share containing AI-generated text has increased precipitously, but unevenly. Our analyses reveal substantial differences in AI composition across language and domain categories (e.g., .edu, .com, or .gov). A higher fraction of English-language webpages contain AI-generated text compared to pages in other languages, and prevalence is substantially lower on .gov and .edu domains compared to .com. These distinctions persist even after accounting for compositional effects. We also find heterogeneity based on a page's position in the connectivity structure of the web. AI-generated text is most common and has increased most rapidly in pages that are the least central in the graph, which drives much of the overall growth in AI-generated text. A slower increase has taken place for more central pages, with the most central tier emerging as the least likely to contain AI-generated text. Methodologically, we use multiple AI detection tools, and generate estimates using a Bayesian hierarchical model that incorporates corrections for the detectors' statistical properties (both false positives and false negatives) and allows for different detector performance across groups, while propagating uncertainty in detector error rates into prevalence estimates. Our work suggests that AI is a prominent, but varied, contributor to public information and internet-based communication.

Comments:

12 pages, 4 figures

Subjects:

Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) ; Computers and Society (cs.CY); Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI); Applications (stat.AP)

Cite as:

arXiv:2610.36631 [cs.AI]

(or

arXiv:2610.36631v1 [cs.AI] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.36631

Focus to learn more

arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history

From: Adam Visokay [ view email ]

[v1]

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 04:33:49 UTC (989 KB)

Full-text links:

Access Paper:

View a PDF of the paper titled The uneven rise of AI-generated web content, by Adam Visokay and 12 other authors

View PDF

HTML (experimental)

TeX Source

view license

Additional Features

Audio Summary

Current browse context:

cs.AI

< prev

next >

new

recent

| 2026-10

Change to browse by:

cs

cs.CY

cs.NI

stat

stat.AP

References & Citations

SciX

Google Scholar

Semantic Scholar

export BibTeX citation

Loading...

BibTeX formatted citation

loading...

Data provided by:

Bookmark

Bibliographic Tools

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Bibliographic Explorer Toggle

Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? )

Connected Papers Toggle

Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? )

Litmaps Toggle

Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? )

scite.ai Toggle

scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? )

Code, Data, Media

Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article

alphaXiv Toggle

alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? )

Links to Code Toggle

CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? )

DagsHub Toggle

DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? )

GotitPub Toggle

Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? )

Huggingface Toggle

Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? )

ScienceCast Toggle

ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? )

Demos

Demos

Replicate Toggle

Replicate ( What is Replicate? )

Spaces Toggle

Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? )

Spaces Toggle

TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? )

Related Papers

Recommenders and Search Tools

Link to Influence Flower

Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? )

Core recommender toggle

CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? )

Author

Venue

Institution

Topic

About arXivLabs

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .

Which authors of this paper are endorsers? |

Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? )