As AI agents continue to be integrated into every part of enterprises, AI writing and productivity platform Grammarly has introduced eight specialized AI agents that target writing challenges, such as originality and predicting reader actions.
The vendor rolled out the AI agents Monday in Docs, Grammarly's new AI-native writing document editor. Docs helps students develop their academic work with research and feedback from professionals.
Grammarly said the new capabilities are part of a redesign built on agentic AI and an attempt to address some of the research and writing needs many face when using one-size-fits-all agentic tools.
The new suite of agentic tools includes the following agents: Reader Reactions, AI Grader, Citation Finder, Expert Review, Proofreader, Plagiarism Checker and Paraphraser.
AI agents for pros
For professionals, the agents take care of some routine processes, Grammarly said. For example, a marketing director can use the Reader Reaction agent to test how the CEO or sales team might react to a product launch announcement.
The release of the new agents comes as more AI-assisted content creation tools enter the market, including tools from providers ProWritingAid and Hemingway Editor.
"While the 'conversational' writing champ is widely seen as being held by ChatGPT, use cases more focused on business applications and longer-form writing in everything from letters to the next great fiction blockbuster are bubbling up quickly," said Liz Miller, an analyst at Constellation Research.
Grammarly is wagering that enterprises will pay money to recover the time lost to stalls and stops across the writing process, Miller said.
"From collaboration that pulls voice and tone of a piece off course to time lost to adjusting for context, there are significant opportunities for an AI platform focused on the productivity and effectiveness of communications," she said.
The provider is also trying to position AI agents as "software that understands goals and takes steps on the user's behalf," said Arun Chandrasekaran, an analyst at Gartner.
He said Grammarly takes a diversified approach, aiming its agents at consumers -- including students -- and extending its reach to businesses.
The notable piece about the new features is Grammarly's awareness of communication and language and its understanding of the work that goes into communication.
Liz MillerAnalyst, Constellation Research
"The strategy leans on heterogeneity, the ability to integrate with popular enterprise collaboration tools such as Slack, Word, Teams and orchestrating tasks across tools such as Jira [and] Calendly," he said. He added that Grammarly's recent acquisitions of Coda and Superhuman extend its agents beyond proofreading. Coda is a collaborative platform that combines documents, spreadsheets and applications. Superhuman is an email app.
Miller said this integration ability also shows how Grammarly differentiates itself from other AI assistants.
"While other assistants may go deeper-- QuillBot loves to paraphrase -- and differentiated around areas of style or variety of style, Grammarly aims to have a far broader application with appeal to a similarly broad audience," she said. "The notable piece about the new features is Grammarly's awareness of communication and language and its understanding of the work that goes into communication."
AI agents and students
Meanwhile, there are mixed responses to using AI tools in learning environments such as schools.
"Some schools are trying to ban these assistants and time savers outright, noting that bias and issues around fairness must be equal for students and teachers alike," Miller said.
However, some educators believe it's essential for students to use the tools.
"Most in education believe that it's critically important for people to learn how to use these tools effectively to amplify their creativity and, for lack of a better term, humanity," said David Nicholson, an analyst at The Futurum Group and an instructor at Wharton Executive Education, in its CTO Executive Program.
Grammarly's new agents are being rolled out in Grammarly Free and Grammarly Pro. Later this year, they will be available to Grammarly Enterprise and Grammarly for Education customers.
Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget news writer and podcast host covering AI software and systems.
