Grammarly Disables AI ‘Expert Review’ After Backlash From Authors and Journalists

Popular writing assistant platform Grammarly said on Wednesday that it has disabled its Expert Review AI feature following online backlash and criticism that the tool used the identities and mannerisms of various writers and editors without permission.

The Expert Review feature analyzes a user’s text and generates feedback on what was written from the perspective of scholars, journalists, and other specialists. Parent company Superhuman said Wednesday that it is changing course after substantial backlash.

“Over the past week, we received valid critical feedback from experts who are concerned that the agent misrepresented their voices,” Superhuman CEO Shishir Mehrotra wrote on LinkedIn. “This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously.”

Grammarly launched the Expert Review feature last summer as part of its expansion into AI productivity agents. The tool lets users select an expert and receive AI-generated feedback modeled on that person’s work. After it was discovered that the AI referenced real people, including deceased scholars, the feature drew swift criticism from academics and journalists.

After criticism, Superhuman said it disabled the Expert Review feature and will redesign it so experts can control whether and how they are represented. Before the change, experts had to manually opt out if they did not want to be included, a policy critics said was unacceptable.

“I’m no lawyer, but I think “We’re going to keep stealing your stuff until you tell us you don’t want us to steal your stuff” isn’t quite the defense Grammarly thinks it is—at least not in the court of public opinion,” former creative director at The Verge, James Bareham, wrote on Bluesky. “I hope this company is sued into oblivion. I canceled my pro account today.”

Others, including author and editor Benjamin Dreyer, mocked the company’s opt-out policy in a post responding to the feature.

“I may ultimately simply take advantage of their bountifully generous opt-out offer, oh thank you, thank you. But in the meantime, if I can cause some corporate shyster a few moments’ worth of agita, I will feel as though my hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’,” Dreyer wrote.

In a statement shared with Decrypt, Ailian Gan, Grammarly’s director of product management for agents, said the company disabled the Expert Review feature after feedback showed it had “missed the mark.”

“As we innovate at the edge of AI, it is important to us that we continue to seek the best ways to help people feel agency over technology and that they can shape it to meet their needs,” Gan wrote. “Thanks for holding us accountable. We are committed to getting it right next time and will be transparent about how we improve from here.”