Accuracy and Reliability of AI-Generated Text Detection Tools: A Literature Review

In short

Across 34 reviewed articles, the authors report that most AI-text detectors scored above 50% accuracy in the studies yet were judged unreliable, with fairness concerns for writers whose first language is not English.

What it looked at

A literature review drawing on three online databases, narrowed to 34 articles that assessed AI-text detectors, looking at which tools were tested, how accurate and reliable they were, and how they handled paraphrased machine text.

What it means for teaching

The review urges human judgement alongside any detector and notes fairness concerns for writers whose first language is not English, so a detector result needs careful weighing.

Limits

Depends on the quality and coverage of the three databases searched and of the studies reviewed. How the included studies were appraised is not described.

Cited 30 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.