Superhuman acquires GPTZero: the irony of AI detection

      Superhuman, the firm previously known as Grammarly, has acquired GPTZero, a startup focused on identifying AI-generated writing. This move highlights an intriguing contradiction: as the internet becomes increasingly flooded with AI-generated content, the ability to demonstrate human authorship is transforming into a marketable product.

      There's an ironic twist at the heart of this acquisition. Superhuman's primary offering assists users in writing with AI, while it has now acquired the startup renowned for detecting AI-generated writing. On Tuesday, Superhuman announced the agreement to purchase GPTZero, although the terms of the deal were not revealed. According to PitchBook, GPTZero is valued at over $88 million, as reported by Business Insider.

      Founder Edward Tian noted that the company has surpassed 19 million registered users and $30 million in yearly recurring revenue, achieving this with just $13.5 million in total funding from a select group of investors, including Uncork Capital, Footwork, Jack Altman’s Alt Capital, and Neo. The co-founders and the 30 employees of GPTZero will now join Superhuman to lead a team dedicated to ensuring authenticity.

      The latest updates from the EU tech landscape, insights from our founder Boris, and some questionable AI art can be found in our weekly newsletter, which is available for free. Sign up today! The combination of these two companies may seem unusual, which has been pointed out by reporters, but the contradiction aligns closely with their strategy. As AI-generated content proliferates on the internet, identifying what has been created by humans is emerging as a distinct category. Superhuman refers to this category as an "authenticity layer," and aims to dominate it.

      The story of GPTZero is also compelling. Tian developed the initial version while he was a senior at Princeton in January 2023, and his thesis project quickly gained widespread attention. Along with his high school friend and co-founder Alex Cui, they transformed it into a viable business with minimal funding. Now 26, Tian emphasizes the company’s mission: “GPTZero started with the mission of preserving what’s human.”

      The product has evolved beyond a simple essay checker, now including features for detecting hallucinations, checking for plagiarism, and verifying citations. A tool called AI Vision flags AI-generated content in real-time across various platforms, including social media, email, publishing, and reviews. Another feature, Replay, tracks the writing process of a document, analyzing every keystroke.

      GPTZero claims its detection tool maintains a false-positive rate below 1% across 20 languages. Its hallucination detection feature has uncovered fabricated citations in both academics and corporate environments, including at a significant AI research conference and within large consulting firms.

      Superhuman already offers an AI detection feature within Grammarly, which has been rated as a top performer by an independent benchmark. The public response to the acquisition is that having two detectors is preferable to one, but the more candid rationale is about expanding reach.

      The companies assert that their technologies complement each other. Since their detectors are trained on different datasets, they identify varied issues. By combining GPTZero’s detection with Grammarly’s insights from the writing habits of 40 million users, the proposition is to create a more comprehensive understanding of human writing. “Together, we’re bringing the most trusted writing tool and the most trusted AI detector into one platform,” said CEO Shishir Mehrotra.

      Superhuman envisions their objective as more than just a simple yes-or-no assessment. Detection informs whether a piece was written by AI, while tools like Grammarly’s Authorship and GPTZero’s Replay aim to clarify how the writing occurred, from initial keystrokes to final edits. This detail is increasingly important as AI errors accumulate.

      Inaccuracies and false citations can infiltrate public records, potentially influencing future AI models. The goal, as proposed, is to catch these inaccuracies early to maintain the integrity of the record.

      The broader goal is immense, with Superhuman claiming 40 million daily users and a presence across one million applications and websites. GPTZero will be integrated into Superhuman Go, the company's AI assistant. Mehrotra describes a major acquirer as a “trampoline” that helps smaller companies achieve greater heights. GPTZero marks Mehrotra's fourth acquisition, following the workspace tool Coda, the Superhuman email application, and the AI spreadsheet Rows.

      There is a genuine market demand for these tools, extending beyond educational settings. Education still constitutes about one-third of Grammarly's over $700 million in annual revenue. Now, recruiters, consultants, and journalists seek similar detection capabilities. The context is significant; one study referenced by Superhuman indicates that AI generates nearly half of all articles published online. One tracker suggests this figure could reach 100% within five years. Merriam-Webster has even named "AI slop" its word of the year, indicating a rising prevalence of detection tools from educational institutions to music streaming services.

      However, purchasing a detection tool reveals two hard truths. The first is that