Berkeley’s ghostwriter: AI writing permeates campus, student and city communications
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Research by The Daily Californian found that AI writing tools are increasingly prevalent in campus, student, and city communications. Analyzing over 1,000 published works and 1 million words, their AI-detection technology revealed a recent widespread adoption of AI-written text. Notably, 42.1% of resolutions passed by the UC Berkeley student government in 2025-26 were flagged for AI, indicating a significant penetration of this technology within a short period.
Staff from The Daily Californian‘s news and data departments ran AI-detection technology on several genres of material, representing more than 1,000 independent published works and 1 million scanned words. We conducted this research to map how far AI-written text has permeated common correspondence and understand how institutions are approaching modern communications.
AI writing was detected in all domains, across almost all genres and levels of public correspondence. Pangram detected AI use in obituaries, Substack posts, messages to students, recorded remarks, news articles and more.
This apparent widespread adoption of AI writing tools is, according to our research, a relatively recent phenomenon. The vast majority of positive test results found in text were published in the past year. For UC Berkeley student government, 42.1% of resolutions passed in the 2025-26 were flagged for AI.