Does PlagScan detect AI?
PlagScan was built to find copied text, not AI writing. Turnitin bought it in 2021, as part of Ouriginal, and is moving its schools to Turnitin's own tools, which do check for AI. Here is what that means for your paper.UpdatedWhat happened to PlagScan
PlagScan, a German plagiarism checker, merged with the Swedish company Urkund in 2020 to form Ouriginal. Turnitin bought Ouriginal in 2021. In 2024 PlagScan stopped selling plans to individuals, and Turnitin has been moving Ouriginal's school customers over to its own products.Where AI checks come from now
A school that moved to Turnitin gets Turnitin's AI writing detection if it licenses it, and the AI score appears in the Turnitin report. A report from an older PlagScan setup is a similarity report: a paper written from scratch by AI, copying nothing, comes back clean there. If you're not sure which you have, look at the branding on the report or ask your instructor. Does Turnitin detect AI? covers Turnitin's side.What to do about it
If your school uses Turnitin, treat your paper like any Turnitin submission: check the draft with a free AI detector, look at the sentences that stand out, and revise before you submit. If your school only runs a similarity check, AI use isn't checked by the software, but your school's AI policy still applies. Either way, keep your drafts and notes so you can show how you wrote the paper.The responsible-use note
Getting past AI detection does not change the underlying integrity question. If AI help is prohibited on a specific assignment, editing text to pass detection is still a policy violation, just harder to catch. This page exists to help writers understand the tooling, not to encourage misconduct. Know your institution's rules, and disclose AI use where required.If AI assistance is permitted and you just want to verify your final text reads naturally, run it through Leap's free AI detector first. It scores your writing from signals like sentence-length variation, stock AI phrases, and repetition, and highlights the sentences that weigh most. It runs in your browser, nothing is sent anywhere, and it is a signal, not proof. If some sentences look stiff, the humanizer helps clean up stock phrases and uniform sentence length so the text reads as yours.Frequently asked questions
Not really. It became part of Ouriginal in 2020, Turnitin bought Ouriginal in 2021, and PlagScan stopped selling plans to individuals in 2024. Turnitin is moving its school customers to Turnitin's own products.
PlagScan was built as a plagiarism checker. At schools that used it, AI checks now come from Turnitin's products or another detector the school adds.
A similarity check doesn't score AI writing, so the question is about whichever AI detector your school uses. If your report shows an AI score, like every detector's it can be wrong, especially on non-native English writing, so treat it as a signal, not proof.
Not anymore: PlagScan ended its individual plans in 2024. To check your own draft, use a free detector such as Leap's, which runs in your browser with no signup and shows the sentences that read most like AI.
Look at the report: PlagScan reports carry PlagScan's branding and Turnitin reports carry Turnitin's. If you can't tell, ask your instructor or your school's teaching center.
