As more than 190 million people use ChatGPT daily basis, new research has discovered that such AI tools are doing more to the way we communicate than just polishing emails.
The study by Florida State University (FSU) found that some of the words frequently suggested by ChatGPT are beginning to surface more often in everyday spoken English, thanks to what has been dubbed a “seep-in effect.”
Examples included words like “surpass,” “boast,” “meticulous,” “strategically” and “garner.”
The findings come as more surveys show a widespread adoption of AI chatbots among millennials and Gen Z in particular.
Unlike previous spikes in vocabulary tied to news events or cultural shifts, the study suggests that this change is being driven by technology itself rather than external circumstances.
The study is the first peer-reviewed analysis to test whether conversational AI systems are influencing how we speak in the real world. The research team, which spanned both the college’s linguistics and computer science departments, examined 22.1 million words from unscripted conversations.
While sudden increases in word use typically follow major real-world events—such as the global rise of “Omicron,” a virus variant, during the COVID-19 pandemic—FSU researchers found that terms commonly used by AI tools have surged since the release of ChatGPT in 2022.
This has sparked discussion online, in recent months, with many social media users weighing up the pros and cons of AI since it exploded in popularity.
AI Buzzwords
Thanks to AI tools, words like “delve” and “intricate” have become more frequent in certain contexts, particularly in education and academic writing. Other terms, including “surpass,” and “garner,” also showed marked increases in use.
Nearly three-quarters of the target words studied had grown in frequency, with some more than doubling, the researchers reported.
Interestingly, the rise was specific to words overrepresented in AI-generated text rather than their synonyms. For example, what the team described as an AI buzzword, “underscore,” has been used increasingly since ChatGPT’s launch, but its synonym “accentuate” has not.
“This research focuses on a central issue in the discourse surrounding AI and language: are these language changes happening because we’re using a tool and repeating what it suggested or is language changing because AI is influencing the human language system?” Tom Juzek, an assistant professor of computational linguistics at FSU and the study’s principal investigator, said in a statement.
By comparing language patterns before and after ChatGPT was rolled out to the public, Juzek and his team concluded that people are now adopting AI-associated words into their natural speech.
He added: “By analyzing lexical trends before and after ChatGPT was released in 2022, we found a convergence between human word choices and LLM-associated patterns with AI buzzwords.”
This is what the researchers have labeled a “seep-in effect,” a phenomenon where machine-generated phrasing migrates into everyday conversations, potentially altering how people express themselves in both personal and professional environments.
“The real danger here isn’t plagiarism—it’s linguistic homogenization,” Colin Cooper, a human behavior analyst, told Newsweek. “As we lean on ChatGPT‑style fluency, our words start to blur.
“Everyone sounds polished, templated, safe but at the expense of tone, texture, and authenticity. It’s not that we’re copying AI; we are letting AI rewrite us into the same beige, efficient mold, and that’s the subtle erosion of individuality that should worry us most.”
The research was accepted into the eighth conference on AI, Ethics, and Society and will be published in AIES Proceedings.
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Reference
Anderson, B., Galpin, R., & Juzek, T. S. (2025). Model Misalignment and Language Change: Traces of AI-Associated Language in Unscripted Spoken English (No. arXiv:2508.00238). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.00238
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