The first StrictlyVC of 2026 hits SF on April 30. Tickets are going fast. Register now.
Save up to $680 on your Disrupt 2026 pass. Ends 11:59 p.m. PT tonight. REGISTER NOW.
Sometimes, things are not just one thing — they’re also another thing. This sentence construction (“It’s not just this — it’s that”) has become so common in AI-generated writing that now, it’s no longer just a clue that a piece of writing may be synthetic — it’s almost a guarantee.
That’s why I was not just intrigued when I saw a Barron’s report about how this sentence construction has dramatically increased in corporate communications — I was deeply amused. The report didn’t just remark on the prevalence of this phrasing in corporate communications — it scanned the market intelligence firm AlphaSense’s database to find how often this phrasing was used in corporate news releases, earnings reports, and government filings.
According to Barron’s, this sentence construction isn’t just a quirk of corporate communications — it’s an epidemic, more than quadrupling from about 50 mentions in 2023, to over 200 uses in 2025.
It’s not just the data that tells us this — I also found some examples from the past year:
It’s not just coincidental that generative AI tools use this phrase a lot — it’s a reflection of our writing, which these tools were trained on (without our permission, might I add, which is not just insulting to writers — it’s a violation). And it’s not just this sentence construction — it’s also em-dashes that are now considered a tell for AI-generated text.
This isn’t just a funny trend — it’s symbolic of how reliant these companies have become on AI (though we cannot say for certain if the above missives were AI-assisted). So next time you see a sentence like that, remember that it’s not just a catchy construction — it might be a symptom of something greater.
“The prevalence of AI content is growing rapidly and ‘it’s not just X, it’s Y’ is a tic preferred by 2025-era frontier language models,” Max Spero, CEO of AI detection tool Pangram, told TechCrunch. “The base rate of occurrence for this sentence structure is high enough that its existence is no smoking gun for AI use, but it’s clear that press releases and company documents, writing driven by requirements and not emotion, are seeing an even higher incidence of AI use.”
Amanda Silberling is a senior writer at TechCrunch covering the intersection of technology and culture. She has also written for publications like Polygon, MTV, the Kenyon Review, NPR, and Business Insider. She is the co-host of Wow If True, a podcast about internet culture, with science fiction author Isabel J. Kim. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she worked as a grassroots organizer, museum educator, and film festival coordinator. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and served as a Princeton in Asia Fellow in Laos.
You can contact or verify outreach from Amanda by emailing amanda@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at @amanda.100 on Signal.
StrictlyVC kicks off the year in SF. Get in the room for unfiltered fireside chats with industry leaders, insider VC insights, and high-value connections that actually move the needle. Tickets are limited.
Blue Origin’s New Glenn put a customer satellite in the wrong orbit during its third launch
Sean O'Kane
Palantir posts mini-manifesto denouncing inclusivity and ‘regressive’ cultures
Anthony Ha
‘Tokenmaxxing’ is making developers less productive than they think
Tim Fernholz
Anthropic launches Claude Design, a new product for creating quick visuals
Aisha Malik
Anthropic CPO leaves Figma’s board after reports he will offer a competing product
Tim Fernholz