Turnitin AI Score Not Showing? Why the Indicator Is Missing or Shows an Asterisk

A Turnitin AI score not showing on a report usually has one of five causes, and Turnitin lists all of them in its own help pages. Students can't see AI writing reports at all. The file may not meet the requirements, the language may not be supported, or the institution may not license the feature. A score between 1% and 19% also shows as an asterisk (*%) instead of a number.

Each cause looks different on the report. A gray icon with two dashes, an asterisk, an error icon and no indicator at all mean different things, and only some of them need a new submission. The AI score is also separate from the similarity score, so a similarity percentage can appear while the AI one is missing.

Turnitin AI score not showing: what each indicator state means

There are a few states that Turnitin's AI writing indicator can take. Each state gives some indication as to why there is or isn't a number. The AI score is under an AI Writing tab in the top menu in the newer Similarity Report. In the classic report, it is in the toolbar on the right. You click on the percentage to open up the AI Writing Report in a new tab. Turnitin mentions that pop-ups must be allowed to open this tab.

What you see	What it means	What to do
No AI indicator, student view	AI writing reports are not visible to students	Ask your instructor, who can download the report and share the file
Gray icon with dashes (--), "AI writing detection unavailable"	Turnitin could not process the file for AI detection	Check the file requirements, fix the file and resubmit
Asterisk (*%)	AI writing found in 1% to 19% of the qualifying text, with no number or highlights shown	No fix needed, the report processed normally
0%	No qualifying text was found likely to be AI-generated	No fix needed, this is a score
Loading	The report is still being generated	Wait, since Turnitin says it can take several minutes
Error icon	The submission failed to process	Try again later, and contact support if the file meets every requirement
"AI writing detection was not enabled at time of submission"	The feature was off for the account when the file came in	Resubmit the file now that the feature is on
No AI Writing tab, instructor view	The institution does not license Turnitin Originality, or the integration does not support it	Ask the institution's Turnitin administrator

Indicator states and fixes as Turnitin's instructor guide and help center describe them, November 2026.

The 0% state and the asterisk are easy to mix up. A 0% means the detector found nothing in the qualifying text. An asterisk means it found something below 20%, and Turnitin chooses not to print the figure. Both are finished reports, so neither one means the score is missing.

Why can't I see my Turnitin score as a student?

Turnitin doesn't show AI writing reports to students. As a student, you can't see your Turnitin AI score. Turnitin has this rule in its help center article on missing AI reports. A Turnitin AI score not showing on the submission page is normal for a student. If your page shows a similarity percentage, that's the result of another report.

An instructor can download the AI Writing Report with the Download button at the top right of the viewer and send you the saved file. If your score comes up in a conversation about your work, asking for that file is reasonable. It's the same report your instructor sees, so you can both talk about the same passages.

Google Classroom has one extra rule. Turnitin's AI detection there needs students to submit through the Turnitin attachment, so a file handed in another way may have no AI report in the instructor's view. If your instructor raises an AI score you were never shown, the guide for students accused of using AI on an essay sets out the next steps.

AI report unavailable: the gray indicator with dashes

A gray indicator with two dashes (--) means Turnitin couldn't process the submission for AI detection. The hover text is "AI writing detection unavailable," and Turnitin gives two causes for it. Either the file was submitted before AI writing detection launched on 4 April 2023, or it doesn't meet the requirements.

For an old paper, the only way to get an AI score is to resubmit it to an active assignment. For a file that misses a requirement, you change the file and submit it again. Turnitin lists five requirements for an AI Writing Report.

Requirement	Turnitin's rule
Length	At least 300 words of prose text in a long-form writing format
Maximum	No more than 30,000 words
File size	Less than 100 MB
File type	.docx, .pdf, .txt or .rtf
Language	English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, German, Dutch or Turkish

File requirements from Turnitin's guide Using the AI Writing Report, updated November 2026.

Not enough qualifying prose

The 300-word floor counts qualifying text. Turnitin defines that as prose sentences in paragraphs that make up a longer piece of writing, such as an essay, a dissertation or an article. Bullet points, short table entries and annotated bibliographies don't count as long-form prose, and the model doesn't reliably detect poetry, scripts or code. Turnitin also leaves the bibliography out of the AI check.

This is why a document with plenty of words can still get the gray icon. A file made mostly of lists, short table cells and references can have far less prose than its word count suggests. The guide to the AI detector minimum word count covers the 300-word floor and why short texts score less reliably.

A worked example

Take a 1,400-word lab report. Its word count is well above 300, but much of it isn't long-form prose. If the methods are a numbered list and the results are a table of short entries, the prose that counts can fall below the floor.

Part of the lab report	Words	Counts toward the 300
Introduction, in paragraphs	160	Yes
Methods, as a numbered list	340	No, a list is short-form writing
Results, as a table of short entries	220	No
Discussion, in paragraphs	120	Yes
Reference list	560	No, bibliographies are excluded
Total	1,400	280 words of qualifying prose

With 280 words of qualifying prose, this report gets the gray icon and no AI score. Nothing about the writing is wrong. Adding filler to reach 300 words changes the report you were asked to write. Leave it as it is, and explain why there is no score if your instructor asks.

Too long, too large or the wrong format

A file over 30,000 words or 100 MB won't get an AI score. A full thesis submitted as one file can pass that word limit, so where the assignment allows it, submitting chapter by chapter keeps each part inside the range. Formats outside .docx, .pdf, .txt and .rtf aren't accepted for AI detection, so an .odt, Pages or slide file needs converting first.

Submitted before April 2023

Papers submitted before 4 April 2023 never went through AI detection. They keep the gray icon until someone resubmits them to an active assignment. Model updates work the same way. Turnitin's release notes say a new version of the detector doesn't change reports that already exist, so an old report keeps its old score until the file is submitted again.

Which languages Turnitin AI detection supports

Turnitin's AI detection works on seven languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, German, Dutch and Turkish. A submission in any other language isn't processed. The indicator shows an empty or error state, an on-screen prompt says the feature only works for supported languages, and no report is generated.

The languages don't all get the same checks. Turnitin says its AI paraphrasing and bypasser detection runs on English submissions only, so a Spanish or Japanese report has no separate category for paraphrased AI text. Spanish support arrived in September 2024 and Japanese in April 2025, and older submissions in those languages need resubmitting to get a report.

What the Turnitin AI asterisk means

The Turnitin AI asterisk (*%) means the detector found AI writing in more than 0% and less than 20% of the qualifying text. Turnitin won't show the figure. No highlights are displayed. The reason for this is that Turnitin found more false positives in this range in its testing, so it hides the number to prevent incorrect interpretation. Reports created before 8 July 2024 may display a number lower than 20%.

An asterisk is a finished score, and it isn't an error. The guide to how Turnitin detects AI gives the full story of the 20% threshold, and how the score is built from segments of text. For the similarity side of the report, the post on what a good Turnitin score is explains how to read that percentage.

When your institution or platform is the reason

Turnitin's AI detection is only available to institutions that license Turnitin Originality. If the main institution doesn't have that license, none of its sub-accounts get the feature either. An instructor with no AI Writing tab at all should ask the institution's Turnitin administrator about the license before checking anything else.

The account setting matters at the moment of submission. If AI detection was switched off when a file came in, the report says so, and the file has to be resubmitted after the feature is switched on. Switching it on later doesn't add scores to earlier submissions.

Some integrations don't carry the AI report. The Teams integration with Turnitin Feedback Studio is the only integration that supports AI detection in Microsoft Teams. The Teams Assignment Similarity integration does not support AI detection. In Google Classroom, when a teacher uses the Similarity integration, they can request their administrator to access a full report using the submission search tool.

There are two temporary states. Loading indicates that the report is still generating; this can take several minutes according to Turnitin. The error icon indicates that the processing failed. Turnitin suggests resubmitting or trying again later. If the error recurs with a file that satisfies all requirements, you should contact support or the Turnitin administrator.

What to do when you can't see your AI score

Students and instructors have different options for a Turnitin AI score not showing on a report. A student can't open the AI report at all, so most of a student's steps are about the file and the conversation. An instructor can see the indicator state and fix the cause.

1. Check that the file has at least 300 words of paragraph prose, leaving out lists, short table entries and the reference list.
2. Check the format and size: .docx, .pdf, .txt or .rtf, under 100 MB and no more than 30,000 words.
3. Check the language. A paper written in a language outside the seven supported ones gets no AI report.
4. As a student, ask your instructor whether an AI report was generated, and ask for the downloaded file if a score is being discussed.
5. Keep your drafts and version history. A score is an estimate, and your drafts show how the text developed.
6. As an instructor, read the indicator state first, resubmit after fixing the file, and contact the Turnitin administrator about licensing or integration problems.

The free Word Counter counts words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and unique words. Use it to check the prose part of a file against the 300-word floor before a deadline. Paste the paragraphs only, since bullet lists and the reference list don't count toward Turnitin's minimum.

If an AI score does come up, keep in mind what Turnitin says about its own model. It "may not always be accurate," and Turnitin says the score shouldn't be the only basis for action against a student. The guide to Turnitin's false positive rate covers the published figures and what they leave out.

Where TextPulse fits

TextPulse doesn't run an AI detector and doesn't sell detector scans, so it can't show you a Turnitin score. After every humanization, it shows a Human Score from 0 to 100. That score is an estimate made in the app from the depth of the rewrite, vocabulary variety, token distribution and sentence-length variation of your text. No detector is used to compute it.

When your course or journal allows AI assistance, the TextPulse AI Humanizer is designed to lower AI scores on your drafts. It needs at least 50 words per humanization and takes up to 500 words per pass on Pro and 1,000 on Plus. The Document Humanizer works on a whole English .docx file up to 15,000 words and keeps headings, lists, tables, captions and references as written.

A Human Score and a Turnitin percentage come from different systems, so one doesn't predict the other. Both are estimates, and your drafts and notes show how the work was written in a way neither number can.