Brands over time

EDF
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

280 of EDF's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2015 to 2026, measured sentence by sentence, 49 of them recovered from the Internet Archive. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 11 other energy suppliers, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
280
Years covered
2015–26
Archived before ChatGPT
49
Blog · press
157 · 123

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

EDF's homepage from 2003 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026edfenergy.com29 Jun 2026
EDF homepage, 29 Jun 2026

Screenshot of EDF’s homepage (edfenergy.com) as archived by the Internet Archive on 29 Jun 2026. © EDF or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by EDF.

Homepage

2026

“Lock in your energy prices”

Page title

Electricity & Gas | UK Energy Supplier for Home & Business | EDF

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2009Energy generation »
  2. 2015Welcome to Feel Better Energy
  3. 2018Smart meters with EDF Energy
  4. 2020Switch to a low cost, low-carbon tariff
  5. 2023With EDF you’ll always get great customer service
  6. 2026Lock in your energy prices

23 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
8
16
24
Energy avg 14.8
13.6
12.6
12.8
13.4
11.8
12.4
16.7
16.7
19.5
17.3
17.9
16.9
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
20157 pp
201611 pp
201711 pp
20184 pp
201913 pp
202013 pp
202120 pp
202220 pp
20237 pp
202412 pp
202516 pp
202613 pp
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
201513.67
201612.611
201712.811
201813.44
201911.813
202012.413
202116.720
202216.720
202319.57
202417.312
202517.916
202616.913

Years with pages: 2015 (7), 2016 (11), 2017 (11), 2018 (4), 2019 (13), 2020 (13), 2021 (20), 2022 (20), 2023 (7), 2024 (12), 2025 (16), 2026 (13). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Before and after

2019 to Nov 2022 against 2024 to 2026

The same measures on 66 pages from before ChatGPT launched and 41 pages from 2024 on. A change here is a change in style. It does not show how any page was written: people used every one of these words and shapes long before 2022, and SGR-011 found most of the shift across brands was a trend already under way.

Measure2019 to Nov 2022 · 66 pp2024 to 2026 · 41 ppChange
Sentence length
14.917.4+17%
Sentence rhythm
0.870.61−29%
Contractions
9.912.6+27%
"You"
28%26%−2 pts
"We"
56%72%+15 pts
Questions
1.52.3+51%
Exclamations
0.500.17−67%
Long words
29%31%+2 pts
Em dashes
2.311.58−32%
AI-associated words
1.172.82+141%
AI-era marketing words
0.902.25+152%
Quieter LLM-favoured words
1.313.08+136%
AI-associated sentence shapes
0.370.30−19%
Page length
1,7511,088−38%

Each row is scaled to its own larger value, so rows compare within themselves, not with each other. Before = 2019 to Nov 2022 (66 pages); after = 2024 to 2026 (41 pages). Method: SGR-011.

04 · Against its sector

EDF among energy suppliers

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. "You"

    46% less than its sector

    28% against a sector average of 51%; lowest of 11.

  2. Questions

    45% less than its sector

    2.1 against a sector average of 3.9; 4th lowest of 11.

  3. "We"

    44% more than its sector

    61% against a sector average of 42%; 3rd highest of 11.

Sentence length2nd highest of 11
EDF 16.1
13.316.4
Contractions3rd lowest of 11
EDF 13.7
8.024.4
"You"Lowest of 11
EDF 28%
28%85%
"We"3rd highest of 11
EDF 61%
14%65%
Questions4th lowest of 11
EDF 2.1
1.77.1
Long words2nd highest of 11
EDF 28%
19%32%
Em dashesMid-table, 7th of 11
EDF 2.42
0.157.68
AI-associated words4th highest of 11
EDF 1.57
0.552.62
Exclamations4th lowest of 11
EDF 0.46
0.001.86
Page length4th highest of 11
EDF 1,223
6681,774

Pages measured: ScottishPower 220 · Utilita 70 · Good Energy 290 · Ecotricity 27 · Outfox the Market 0 · Fuse Energy 232 · Octopus Energy 289 · British Gas 199 · EDF 280 · OVO 157 · E.ON Next 132 · So Energy 53. Measures and method: SGR-010; the brand list and sectors come from SGR-009.

05 · Vocabulary

Words EDF uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

nuclear44.1 vs 1.3
station17.5 vs 0.9
stations16.5 vs 2.0
construction14.5 vs 1.2
talk15.6 vs 1.9
skills14.0 vs 1.2
power81.1 vs 40.0
net26.7 vs 7.9
consultation11.2 vs 0.7
zero33.2 vs 11.8
EDFSector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 280 pages. Checked for product names and page furniture.

06 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

20134 Feb · Press
“Momentum behind EDF Energy’s new nuclear project at Hinkley Point C in Somerset remains strong. The company notes Centrica’s recognition of progress made on a number of key project areas, including design and planning.”
Centrica decision not to participate in UK nuclear build
2017 · BlogArchived copy
“We’re proud to have been part of EMEX 2017 in London this week. The mood was of optimism and positivity about the future of the energy industry, with key themes of efficiency, partnerships, flexibility and the expanding role of energy managers coming through strongly in the topics covered.”
EMEX 2017
2021 · Blog
“The government published the UK’s Net Zero Strategy – detailing policies and proposals for decarbonising all sectors of the UK economy to meet its net zero target by 2050.”
Regulatory Report - October 2021
2024 · Press
“Hinkley Point C has just finished digging the 620 metre tunnel for the power station's fish return system, which runs under the Bristol Channel.”
January 2024 project update

07 · Every page

All 319 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 280 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (2 pdf report (annual report, info pack), 2 under 150 words of text, 35 mostly short lines (lists, tables, link pages) rather than prose). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

202613 pages
202516 pages
202412 pages
20237 pages
202220 pages
202120 pages
202013 pages
201913 pages
20184 pages
201711 pages
201611 pages
20157 pages
In the overall numbers, no year133 pages
Not measured39 pages

08 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

EDF's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.