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How Much of Substack Is Actually Written by AI?

|Author: Viacheslav Vasipenok|3 min read| 11
How Much of Substack Is Actually Written by AI?

Journalist Taylor Lorenz just ran the numbers — and the results are surprisingly reassuring for anyone who still values a human voice on the internet.

How Much of Substack Is Actually Written by AI?Using Pangram (an AI-detection tool), Lorenz analyzed the 10 most recent posts from the top 25 Substack Bestsellers across every major category. That’s 575 posts in total. The verdict? The vast majority of popular Substack writing is still authentically human.

In 384 out of 575 posts, Pangram found zero traces of AI assistance. That means roughly two-thirds of the content dominating Substack leaderboards today was written by real people, not machines.

But dig a little deeper into the categories, and a clearer pattern emerges.

Where AI Is (and Isn’t) Taking Over

How Much of Substack Is Actually Written by AI?Here’s the breakdown of posts that showed detectable AI involvement:

  • Technology — 28% (nearly one in every four posts);
  • Philosophy — 23%;
  • Health — 22%.

These numbers make sense. Tech, philosophy, and health newsletters often lean heavily on data, research summaries, trend analysis, and systematic breakdowns — exactly the kind of analytical grunt work where AI excels as a research and structuring assistant.

On the other end of the spectrum, the more “human” categories remain remarkably AI-resistant:

  • Culture — 13%;
  • Sports — 5%;
  • Food & Cooking — 3%;
  • Music — 1% (the absolute lowest).

In other words, when the content is about taste, opinion, personal storytelling, or lived experience, creators are still doing it the old-fashioned way.

The Real Story Behind the Numbers

The pattern is telling: the more analytical and data-heavy the newsletter, the more likely authors are turning to AI to process information, organize thoughts, and polish drafts. AI has become a powerful co-pilot for turning raw research into readable prose.

How Much of Substack Is Actually Written by AI?Yet the data also shows a hard limit. Hot takes, personal essays, subjective commentary, and deeply felt opinions? Those still belong firmly to humans.

People aren’t ready to outsource their voice, their perspective, or their lived experience to a language model — at least not yet, and certainly not on the platforms where authenticity matters most to readers.

Also read:

What It Means for the Future of Substack

How Much of Substack Is Actually Written by AI?This isn’t a story about AI “taking over” newsletters. It’s a story about smart creators using new tools where they make sense — and refusing to use them where they don’t.

Substack’s top writers are proving that the platform’s biggest strength remains the same as it always was: the direct, unfiltered connection between a real human writer and their audience. AI can help with the scaffolding, but it still can’t replace the soul of the piece.

For now, at least, the majority of what you’re reading on Substack’s bestseller lists is still being written by actual people. And in an age of increasingly sophisticated AI content, that feels like genuinely good news.

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