How to use the em dash in 2026: why the web turned it off and what it means for your content
By Anton Sednin, Grid Concepts
Short answer: across 2025 and 2026 the web fell out of love with the em dash because it became a tell for AI-written text, and top-ranking marketing blogs now use very few of them, with the shorter en dash where a dash is needed. It has no negative effect on SEO, and stripping it out does not make text pass an AI detector. Leave your existing pages alone, and swap the em dash for the en dash only when you are building or redesigning something new.
G’day, Anton Sednin here from Grid Concepts. If you spend your days knee-deep in marketing and the current wave of AI tools, you have probably picked up on a quiet shift that took hold across 2025 and 2026: the internet has fallen out of love with the em dash.
Don’t take my word for it. Look at the sites ranking at the top of Google for searches like “digital marketing New York” and “business consulting New York”. Pages like these are the shopfront of the modern web, so it is worth asking why they are steering clear of the em dash. The answer is simple. They want their text to read as though a person wrote it, not a language model. And AI models, left to their own devices, reach for the em dash constantly.
If you own a business or run marketing for one, that raises a few practical questions:
- Should you drop the em dash altogether, or go through your key pages and swap it out in bulk?
- Does the em dash have any effect on SEO?
- Does removing it change how your content scores in an AI detector?
- How do you stop your AI assistant using it in the first place?
Let’s work through each of them.
How serious is the em dash trend, and should you care?
If history is any guide, it is serious enough to pay attention to.
Anyone who was doing marketing 15 years ago will remember that this is the second time the web has picked a fight with dashes. Back in the 2000s, people started noticing that Word documents defaulted to the shorter en dash where proper typography called for the em dash, and the short dash quietly became a marker of cheap, careless web copy. Editors, publishers and designers from that era still wince at the memory.
In 2025 the story repeated itself, only in reverse. OpenAI trained ChatGPT on a body of text dominated by Chicago-style punctuation, where the em dash is used with no spaces on either side. Two problems with that. First, almost nobody online had ever written that way; spaced dashes had long been the working standard on the web. Second, ChatGPT users could not get the model to stop doing it, no matter how they phrased the request. When the issue was finally fixed, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman thought it worth a dedicated post on X.
One nuance matters here. Between 2023 and 2025, ChatGPT output was littered with em dashes, and the symbol became one of the go-to tells for AI-written text. In 2026, ChatGPT generates noticeably fewer of them.
Either way, the ripple effect through the industry has been real. Designers now have to factor this into the typography of the sites they build, and copywriters are routinely briefed to keep em dashes to a minimum.
Should copywriters be told to cut back on the em dash in 2026?
Yes, if you want your content to sit comfortably alongside what is currently ranking. We looked at blog sections from sites in the top results for “digital marketing New York” and “digital marketing London”:
- aumcore.com/blog/
- digitaldrewsem.com/blog/
- thegoodmarketer.co.uk/blog/
- londonmarketingcompany.co.uk/our-blog/
The pattern is hard to miss. Across every one of these blogs, posts contain very few em dashes at all, and where a dash is needed the shorter en dash does the job. We reviewed these blogs in July 2026, so feel free to click through and scan the articles from that period yourself. If you are a copywriter, an SEO specialist or a marketer, the near-total absence of em dashes will jump out at you.
So if you want your content to match the 2026 norm, ask your writers to rein in the em dash, and if you are generating copy with AI, make that instruction an explicit part of your prompt.
Does the em dash affect SEO?
Which brings us to the obvious follow-up: is there any tangible upside to ditching the em dash? For SEO, no. If anything, the Grid Concepts team has found the opposite. A well-placed em dash makes it easier to work LSI terms into a sentence naturally, helps trim filler words and tends to improve the overall structure of a piece.
Why are the big agencies walking away from the em dash?
I know the temptation when you read this is to conclude that marketers have lost the plot again. But there is a logic to it. At some point businesses started treating AI detectors as a quality gate, and dropping the em dash is an easy way for staff to hit their “humanised content” KPIs.
And yes, there is a fair bit of absurdity baked into that.
Does removing em dashes help content pass an AI detector?
No. Our team at GC has been running content through AI detectors for several years now. As far back as 2024 we tested whether you could “humanise” a piece simply by stripping out the em dashes. The answer then was closer to no than yes. In 2026 it is a flat no.
For this article we re-ran the experiment with the five most widely used AI detectors. We took an article written entirely by a human, removed every em dash, and checked the results. In some cases the text still failed the detector. In others, removing the em dashes actually pushed the “AI-generated” score higher.
Our team also looked at whether failing an AI detector has any bearing on search performance. The finding was almost comical: roughly half of our clients’ best-performing articles fail AI detection, including pieces we wrote years before generative AI existed. Tight, well-structured content simply reads as “machine-like” to these tools. That is precisely why Google has stated publicly that AI detection is not a ranking factor.
So if you are a business owner running your content through an AI checker, I will be honest, I am not sure what you are hoping to get out of it. It is part of the broader AI panic that swept the web through 2025 and 2026. That said, in plenty of situations the pragmatic rule applies: if you cannot beat them, join them.
Should you replace the em dash across your existing website?
Here is the dilemma. Say you adopt the trend and stop using the em dash from today. What happens to the hundreds of older pages that still have it? The inconsistency in typography will be glaring. If you have found yourself stuck at this fork, let me save you the deliberation: leave it alone. The em dash is not a problem worth solving retrospectively.
There are, however, a few situations where it makes sense to rethink your approach:
- You are building a brand-new website
- You are redesigning your current site
- You are creating a standalone landing page, say for a Google Ads campaign
In short, if you are already making sweeping changes, current best practice is to swap the em dash for the en dash while you are at it.
How do you stop AI from using the em dash?
| Assistant | Where to set the rule | How well it holds |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Settings, Personalisation, Custom Instructions (or the equivalent in your version) | Works for new chats, but not guaranteed 100% of the time |
| Claude | Project instructions, one project at a time; not available globally | Works |
| Gemini | Personal settings or saved instructions if available, otherwise paste it as the first message | Usually holds; may need a reminder once or twice |
| Copilot | Custom instructions in Copilot Pages or a workspace if available, otherwise state it at the start of each chat | Generally holds within a conversation, but may slip back occasionally |
Can you stop ChatGPT from using the em dash?
Yes, and it is a quick fix. To keep the em dash out of new ChatGPT conversations, open Settings, then Personalisation, then Custom Instructions (or the equivalent section in your version). In the field for additional preferences, add something along the lines of: “In every response, use only the en dash and never use the em dash.” The exact wording is up to you.
Once saved, new chats will follow that rule. Just be aware that compliance is not guaranteed 100 per cent of the time.
Can you stop Claude from using the em dash?
Not globally. But if you organise your chats into Projects, you can add a no-em-dash rule to each project’s instructions, and that does work. For example: “In every response, use only the en dash in place of the em dash. Never use the em dash character.” Again, tweak the wording to suit.
Can you stop Gemini from using the em dash?
To keep Gemini off the em dash, head to the personal settings or saved instructions area (if it is available on your account) and add the rule: “In every response, use only the en dash and never use the em dash.” If persistent instructions are not available to you, paste that line as the very first message in a new chat. Gemini will usually respect it for the rest of the conversation, though you may need to remind it once or twice.
Can you stop Copilot from using the em dash?
Copilot does not offer a universal setting that bans the em dash across all new chats. If you use Copilot Pages or a workspace that supports custom instructions, you can try pinning the rule there. Otherwise, you will need to state it at the start of each new conversation.
Where persistent instructions are available in your version, add: “In every response, use only the en dash and never use the em dash.” If they are not, send that line as your opening message. Copilot generally holds to the rule within a conversation, but it may slip an em dash back in occasionally, so repeat the instruction if needed.
Frequently asked questions
Why did websites stop using the em dash?
Because AI models overuse it, so it became a tell for AI-written text. Businesses want their copy to read as human-written, so top-ranking marketing blogs now use very few em dashes and use the shorter en dash instead.
Does the em dash hurt SEO?
No. There is no SEO upside to removing it, and the Grid Concepts team has found a well-placed em dash helps with working LSI terms into a sentence, trimming filler and improving structure.
Does removing em dashes help content pass an AI detector?
No. In our 2026 test with five widely used AI detectors, a fully human-written article with every em dash removed still failed in some cases, and in others its AI-generated score went up. Google has said AI detection is not a ranking factor.
Should I replace em dashes on my existing website?
No. Leave existing pages alone. Swap the em dash for the en dash only when you are building a new site, redesigning, or creating a standalone landing page.
How do I stop ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini using the em dash?
Add an instruction such as “In every response, use only the en dash and never use the em dash” to ChatGPT’s Custom Instructions, to each Claude Project’s instructions, or to Gemini’s saved instructions (or as your first message). Compliance is good but not guaranteed.