OpenAI has officially resolved the persistent “em dash” issue in ChatGPT, allowing users to finally disable the punctuation mark that has become an unintended hallmark of AI-generated content. Following widespread frustration across professional and academic sectors, CEO Sam Altman confirmed that custom instructions now successfully override the chatbot’s tendency to overuse these dashes.
The End of the “ChatGPT Hyphen”
The ubiquity of the em dash in AI output has turned the punctuation mark into a digital “tell.” In recent months, its presence has popped up everywhere—from student essays and professional emails to LinkedIn posts, ad copy, and customer service dialogues. This repetitive stylistic quirk led to public criticism, with many labeling users as “lazy” for relying on AI to generate their text.
While proponents of the punctuation argue that em dashes have long been a staple of formal writing, the inability of LLMs to regulate their usage made the so-called “ChatGPT hyphen” a polarizing feature. Even when users explicitly requested that the bot avoid the symbol, the problem had stumped OpenAI’s developers for an extended period.
Sam Altman Confirms the Update
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the fix in a post on X, characterizing the update as a “small-but-happy win.” He confirmed that users can now effectively restrict the chatbot from deploying em dashes by simply adding the instruction to their personalized settings.
Small-but-happy win:
If you tell ChatGPT not to use em-dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it’s supposed to do!
— Sam Altman (@sama) November 14, 2025
How to Regain Control
In a statement on Threads—where the company even issued a lighthearted apology for “ruining the em dash”—OpenAI clarified that the change is not a global default. Instead, the model’s adherence to user preferences has been significantly improved. By utilizing the custom instructions feature, users can now exert greater control over the frequency and presence of em dashes in their AI-generated outputs.
