AI Studies

TrustRadius Reviews Effectively Battling AI-Generated Reviews

TrustRadius review analysis: 29,000 reviews, 123 B2B software products. Discover content authenticity with Originality.ai AI detector, distinguishing human and AI-generated input.

AI-Generated Reviews Stay Level After GPT Launch

We analyzed 29,000 reviews about 123 products at TrustRadius, a site for reviews about B2B software. Our AI detector examined the text of reviews to find how much content was likely generated by humans or AI.

Summary of Key Findings:

  1. More than 10.7% of reviews on TrustRadius since the launch of ChatGPT are likely to be AI-generated. This represents an increase of 29% compared to the period before any GPT applications became available, but also a 20% decrease since ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022.
  2. High ratings of 8, 9, and 10 were 1.75 times more likely to have AI-generated reviews than reviews of 1, 2, or 3.
  3. Anonymous reviews were more likely to be AI-generated than those with the name of the reviewer publicly available in the period before ChatGPT, but not after. 

Study Method and Data:

  1. The text from 29,000 TrustRadius reviews that were at least 100 words long were rated by Originality.AI’s AI detector as human or AI generated.
  2. We tracked the percentage of reviews rated as AI-generated over time.
  3. The product rating given along with each review was analyzed along with whether the review was written by a human or AI. The relationship between ratings and AI-generated text was analyzed. 

AI in TrustRadius Reviews Study Findings

More than 10.7% of Reviews on TrustRadius, since the launch of ChatGPT, are suspected of being AI generated

AI in TrustRadius Reviews Study Findings

Our AI detector examined the text of reviews to find how many of them were likely generated by humans or AI. We calculated what percent of reviews posted each month were AI-generated and tracked how that percentage changed over time. The amount of AI-generated reviews grew after GPT-2 was introduced in February 2019 and followed by GPT-3 in June 2020. However there was a decline around the time ChatGPT became available in November 2022. The first 10 months of 2002 averaged 13.5% of reviews being from AI, but fell to 10.5% from November 2022 through September 2023, a decrease of 22.5%. The decrease provides a direct contrast to the steep increase in AI-generated reviews after ChatGPT found in Originality.AI’s study of Capterra, a similar software-review site.

The drop could be due to fewer AI-generated reviews being submitted to TrustRadius or if the site is using AI-detection tools or other procedures to lower the number of such reviews that get published. TrustRadius states that it rejects 47% of reviews it receives for a number of reasons, including being too short, lacking in useful details, or “suspicious user.”

Note that the ~5% of reviews that were identified as AI generated before 2020 represent false positives that occur with AI detectors. Reference our accuracy study for more details - https://originality.ai/ai-content-detection-accuracy/

High Ratings of 8 to 10 Had 75% More AI-Generated Reviews

TrustRadius High Product Rating Reviews 74.6% More Likely To Be Ai Generated

TrustRadius ratings are on a scale of 1 to 10. We found that, since GPT-2 became available in early 2019, 13.8% of reviews with a rating of 8 to 10 were written by AI, and that 7.7% of reviews with ratings of 1 to 3 were. This difference meant reviews with higher ratings were 75% more likely to be AI-generated than reviews with lower ratings.

Anonymous, “Verified User” Reviews Were 8.7% More Likely to Be AI-Generated

TrustRadius allows its users to post reviews anonymously, listed as “Verified Users” along with a job title. The anonymous reviews were slightly more likely to be written by AI compared to reviews that have the user’s name attached to them, at 13.6% vs. 12.5%. This TrustRadius finding contrasts with what was found at G2.com, another software-review site, where anonymous reviews were less likely to be AI-generated. Another difference is that in the period since ChatGPT became available, TrustRadius reviews no longer have any difference between anonymous and named reviews. The equalization could be due to the same processes that have lowered the number of AI-generated reviews at TrustRadius overall have worked equally well on both types of reviews.

Summary

Using AI to generate text for reviews presents challenges for everyone trying to use those reviews to make decisions, whether for personal or business uses. How do you feel about a review that was AI-generated? The site might be making an effort to stop such reviews from showing up, but some persist. The findings in this study show how detecting AI can change how we use sites like TrustRadius and how the sites can better curate their content.

Turing Test

If you have any questions about this study, please contact us.

Jonathan Gillham

Founder / CEO of Originality.ai I have been involved in the SEO and Content Marketing world for over a decade. My career started with a portfolio of content sites, recently I sold 2 content marketing agencies and I am the Co-Founder of MotionInvest.com, the leading place to buy and sell content websites. Through these experiences I understand what web publishers need when it comes to verifying content is original. I am not For or Against AI content, I think it has a place in everyones content strategy. However, I believe you as the publisher should be the one making the decision on when to use AI content. Our Originality checking tool has been built with serious web publishers in mind!

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