Short answer: There’s no such thing as a “best” AI detector—just various flavors of disappointment, IMHO. @mikeappsreviewer covered a bunch of the most hyped tools, and I get where they’re coming from, but I actually gotta disagree that cross-checking will always give you peace of mind. Sometimes, instead of getting clarity, you just get more confused! Example: I uploaded the same work memo to three different sites and got 17%, 69%, and “Highly AI-generated” as verdicts. That tells me these detectors are mostly guessing.
Gonna be real: most “AI detector” tools are riding the hype train, and the tech itself is way behind the PR. I’ve read real university papers get flagged as ChatGPT-written, and professional marketing copy pass as “human” when it’s obviously bot. The science is shaky. Honestly, if your job depends on catching AI-generated stuff, my advice is to trust your gut and look for stylistic “tells” instead of relying entirely on these sites (awkward phrasing, too-clean grammar, sudden shifts in tone). The best workflow I’ve found: run the text through ONE decent detector (I prefer Originality.ai—not perfect but at least a little more transparent), then do a human-level sanity check. Combine methods, don’t outsource your judgment to a robot.
And PLEASE don’t blow up over 5-10% “AI detected”—the tools are super sensitive and half the English language is stored in their model parameters. Seriously consider the context; no software can read for intent or subject expertise. The future might hold a miracle app, but we’re not there yet. For now, use these detectors as a flagging tool, not an ultimate authority.