Grammarly gets a design overhaul, multiple AI features

Grammarly now has a new document-based interface, built on the back of Coda, the productivity startup it acquired last year. The interface also sports an AI assistant, as well as a few AI tools meant for students and professionals, including an AI grader, proofreader and citation finder.

The new interface adopts a block-first approach, letting you insert tables, columns, separators, lists and headers. You can also add rich text blocks to highlight information, add tips, or alerts.

A sidebar hosts the AI assistant, which can summarize text, answer your questions, and provide writing suggestions.

There’s a bunch of AI tools, too: “Reader Reactions” lets you to pick a reader persona and get feedback on your writing based on that persona; “Grader” can provide feedback based on an instructor’s guidelines and publicly-available course material; “Citation Finder,” like it says on the tin, can help you find and generate citations from public materials; and “Paraphraser” can modify a text’s tone according to your preferences.

Grammarly’s also added agents that can detect plagiarism or AI-generated content.

Luke Behnke, VP of enterprise product at Grammarly, admitted to TechCrunch that agents made to detect AI-generated content can be hit or miss, but he claimed that the company has tuned its agent to be the most accurate in the market.

“The goal here is not to provide an enforcement mechanism for teachers. If teachers want to enforce policies, they should use our authorship tool. But this [AI detector tool] is about providing a window to students into what could be AI-generated text in their writing before they submit,” he told TechCrunch.

Taken as a whole, Grammarly now has tools that can help students write using AI, and also detect AI-generated writing. So how is it striking a balance between those foci, which one could argue are at opposite ends of the spectrum? Well, the company says it has “a moral imperative” to teach students how to use AI and make them ready for the workforce.

Like many other companies these days, Grammarly wants to build and integrate more AI agents in its products — the company essentially said as much when it announced the acquisition of email client Superhuman last month.

In May, Grammarly raised $1 billion from General Catalyst to make acquisitions and bolster its sales and marketing efforts.