how to spot generic ai output
the tells are consistent enough to list. once you know them, you see them everywhere:
- the vocabulary. crucial, vibrant, testament, underscore, landscape, tapestry. words that sound like meaning without carrying any.
- the em dash. used like a verbal tic, mid-sentence, every few lines, doing the job three different punctuation marks could do better.
- rule-of-three padding. every list has exactly three items whether the content needed three or not.
- the default palette. cream, beige, a "warm and approachable" brown. nobody chose it, it just happened, because nobody was willing to reject it.
- the tone. relentlessly warm, endlessly balanced, no actual opinion anywhere in it. everything is "exciting" and nothing is ranked, dismissed, or preferred.
none of these make something unusable. they make it forgettable, which for a brand or a product is close enough to the same thing.
what real taste looks like instead
it's usually smaller than people expect. a detail that rewards someone who looks closer, rather than a feature that shouts at someone who doesn't. it's hidden, earned, the kind of thing a user finds on their own and feels like they discovered rather than were sold. the best interfaces have always worked this way: the confidence to leave something out, not just the ability to add something in.
taste also shows up as speed. someone with it rejects the wrong default the moment they see it, not after a debate. that instinct, more than any style guide, is what actually keeps a product from reading like everything else that shipped this year.
why it matters for a build
a studio with taste kills ninety percent of the default, generic choices before a client ever sees a draft. that's the actual value, not a mood board and not a brand deck. it's the decision that was never presented because it was never seriously considered.