By skyforbes We ran a controlled SEO experiment to answer this.
So we created:
• Two pages on the same (invented) keyword
• Same intent, structure, optimisation
• Same internal linking
• Both built to rank, the only variable was authorship
One was purely AI generated
One written & edited by humans with real expertise
Results:
• The human version outranked AI, averaging 4.4 positions higher
• 68% of ranking URLs in our dataset were written by humans
• The AI version did rank early, but lost visibility fast
• The human page was more likely to be surfaced/cited in AI-generated answers (Google + ChatGPT)
We didn’t necessarily find that AI generated content is useless. That’s not the point.
It’s that AI can accelerate production, but expertise, originality, sourcing, and human refinement drive long-term visibility.
You might get indexed faster with AI.
But you stay visible longer with authenticity + authority.
Full write-up of the entire experiment with graphs and findings here:
https://www.rebootonline.com/blog/ai-vs-humans-content-writing-seo-experiment/