LigoSocial Research/Report

Em dashes, AI and LinkedIn: what the data shows

The em dash became the internet's favourite AI tell. We tracked it, and five other patterns, across four years of real LinkedIn posts.

Published By LigoSocial Research

Sample134,522 posts from 1,499 real LinkedIn profiles, January 2023 to September 2026

Posts with an em dash, 2023
3.5%
Posts with an em dash, 2023
Posts with an em dash, 2025
26%
Posts with an em dash, 2025
Posts with an em dash, 2026
20%
Posts with an em dash, 2026
Engagement on em dash posts
+7%
Engagement on em dash posts
same author

Key findings

  • Em dash posts: 3.5% (2023), 12% (2024), 26% (2025), 20% (2026).
  • In a fixed panel of 345 people, heavy em dash users went from 5% to 53% to 35%.
  • Em dash posts are not penalised (+7%); AI-sounding posts are (-22%).
  • Buzzwords fell; AI structures like "It's not X, it's Y" and arrow bullets kept rising.
Contents
  1. 1The short answer
  2. 2Same people, different punctuation
  3. 3Do em dashes hurt engagement?
  4. 4The other AI tells, tracked

The short answer

Em dash use on LinkedIn rose sevenfold after ChatGPT arrived, from 3.5% of posts in 2023 to 26% in 2025, then dropped to 20% in 2026 as people learned it was a tell. But the dash itself is not what costs you engagement.

Line chart: 2021H1 8%, 2021H2 5%, 2022H1 3%, 2022H2 3%, 2023H1 3%, 2023H2 4%, 2024H1 6%, 2024H2 16%, 2025H1 28%, 2025H2 24%, 2026H1 21%, 2026H2 19%
Figure 1. Posts containing an em dash, by half-year. Download PNG

Same people, different punctuation

3.5% to 26%

Finding 5

Em dashes went up sevenfold, then fell

Posts with at least one em dash: 3.5% in 2023, 26% in 2025, 20% in 2026. In a fixed panel of 345 people who posted in both 2023 and 2025, the share who used one in at least 1 post in 5 went from 5% to 53%, then down to 35% in 2026.

134,873 postsHigh confidenceRead the full report

A fixed panel matters here: it rules out the idea that new, AI-heavy users simply joined the sample. The same people changed how they punctuate.

Do em dashes hurt engagement?

+7%

Finding 6

The em dash itself is not what readers punish

Posts with an em dash got +7% engagement vs the same author's posts without one (95% CI +3% to +10%). The dash is a marker that often travels with AI text, not the cause of the penalty. Deleting dashes from an AI draft does not make it read human.

920 authorsHigh confidenceRead the full report

The other AI tells, tracked

1.3% to 9.6%

Finding 7

People dropped the famous AI words but kept the AI structures

"Delve", "game-changer" and "ever-evolving landscape" fell from 4.2% of posts in 2023 to 0.5% in 2026. Over the same years "Here's why" style set-ups rose from 1.3% to 9.6%, "It's not X, it's Y" contrasts from 1.2% to 5.9%, and arrow bullets from 0.6% to 12.3%. Writers learned to delete the words everyone mocks, not the rhythm that gives AI away.

All posts of 150+ characters, 2023 to 2026High confidenceRead the full report
Line chart of AI writing patterns. "It's not X, it's Y": 0.1% in 2022H1 to 5.9% in 2026H1; "Here's why" and friends: 0.2% in 2022H1 to 9.6% in 2026H1; Arrow bullets: 0.2% in 2022H1 to 12.9% in 2026H1; "Delve", "game-changer": 0.5% in 2022H1 to 0.5% in 2026H1
Figure 2. AI writing patterns over time. Download PNG
Table 1. Share of posts using each pattern, by year
Pattern20222023202420252026
Em dash2.9%3.5%12.5%26.0%20.3%
"It's not X, it's Y"0.0%1.2%1.4%2.3%5.9%
"Here's why / here's the thing"0.3%1.3%4.1%5.9%9.6%
Arrow bullets0.3%0.6%4.0%11.8%12.3%
"Delve", "game-changer", "landscape"0.4%4.2%3.9%2.0%0.5%

Posts of 150+ characters. 2026 runs to September.

Does your next post read as AI?

Paste it into the free LinkedIn AI Detector. It scores the post and points at the phrases and patterns that give it away. Nothing you paste is stored.

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Common questions

Is the em dash a sign of AI writing?
It is a weak signal. Em dash use jumped from 3.5% to 26% of LinkedIn posts as AI tools spread, but plenty of people used them before ChatGPT (6% of posts in 2021).
Should I stop using em dashes on LinkedIn?
You do not need to for engagement: posts with an em dash got +7% vs the same author's other posts. If you want to avoid looking AI-written, fix the voice, not just the punctuation.
Why does ChatGPT use so many em dashes?
Language models learned from edited text such as books and journalism, where the em dash is common, and they use it to join clauses smoothly. On LinkedIn, where most people type quickly on a phone, it stands out.

Download the data

  • Em dashes and AI writing patterns, by half-year

    Share of posts (150+ characters) using each pattern.

    12 rows, CSV

    CSV

  • Share of posts that read as AI, by half-year

    Posts of 300+ characters, calibrated judge, with the pre-ChatGPT false-positive baseline.

    9 rows, CSV

    CSV

Suggested citation

LigoSocial Research (2026). Em dashes and AI: how often LinkedIn posts use them. https://ligosocial.com/research/em-dash-ai

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: quote the numbers, embed the charts or rework the data, with credit to LigoSocial Research and a link to this page. Every figure is aggregated and anonymised; no individual, profile or post can be identified.

How we collect, clean and anonymise the data: methodology. Questions or a cut we have not published? Ask us.

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