Grammarly's 'Expert Review' Feature Lacks Actual Human Experts

Grammarly's latest feature claims to enhance your writing with insights from renowned authors, thinkers, and even some prominent tech journalists.
Released in August 2025 as part of a suite of new AI tools, Expert Review pops up in Grammarly's main writing assistant sidebar. It offers revision suggestions supposedly crafted "from the perspective" of various subject matter authorities.
As Wired highlighted, Grammarly presents this feedback as if it's coming directly from famous writers, both contemporary and historical. According to The Verge, the suggestions can sometimes even appear to originate from tech reporters at outlets like The Verge, Wired, Bloomberg, and The New York Times.
Naturally, this made me wonder: What about TechCrunch? I pasted an early version of this article into Grammarly, hoping for tips from my colleagues. Instead, the tool advised me to "add ethical context" like Casey Newton, "leverage the anecdote for reader alignment" like Kara Swisher, and "pose the bigger accountability question" like Timnit Gebru.
The result was quite a letdown. While the feature itself feels somewhat poorly conceived, if all those other publications are getting name-checked, what does that say about us?
To state what's already clear, none of these individuals seem to be involved with Expert Reviews or to have granted Grammarly permission to use their names. Alex Gay, VP of Product and Corporate Marketing at Grammarly's parent company Superhuman, explained to The Verge that these experts are referenced "because their published works are publicly available and widely cited."
In its user guide for the feature, Grammarly adds a clarification: "References to experts in Expert Review are for informational purposes only and do not indicate any affiliation with Grammarly or endorsement by those individuals or entities."
That statement is fairly straightforward, I suppose. But it begs the question: How exactly is this an "expert review"? Perhaps it isn't at all, as historian C.E. Aubin pointed out to Wired: "These are not expert reviews, because there are no 'experts' involved in producing them."
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Comments (2)
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Wait, so 'Expert Review' doesn't involve actual experts? That's a bit misleading. I used it and the suggestions felt generic, like any other AI tool. The marketing hype is real, but the 'expertise' seems to be just a fancy label for their LLM. Makes you wonder about the ethics of naming features like this.

Grammarly's latest feature claims to enhance your writing with insights from renowned authors, thinkers, and even some prominent tech journalists.
Released in August 2025 as part of a suite of new AI tools, Expert Review pops up in Grammarly's main writing assistant sidebar. It offers revision suggestions supposedly crafted "from the perspective" of various subject matter authorities.
As Wired highlighted, Grammarly presents this feedback as if it's coming directly from famous writers, both contemporary and historical. According to The Verge, the suggestions can sometimes even appear to originate from tech reporters at outlets like The Verge, Wired, Bloomberg, and The New York Times.
Naturally, this made me wonder: What about TechCrunch? I pasted an early version of this article into Grammarly, hoping for tips from my colleagues. Instead, the tool advised me to "add ethical context" like Casey Newton, "leverage the anecdote for reader alignment" like Kara Swisher, and "pose the bigger accountability question" like Timnit Gebru.
The result was quite a letdown. While the feature itself feels somewhat poorly conceived, if all those other publications are getting name-checked, what does that say about us?
To state what's already clear, none of these individuals seem to be involved with Expert Reviews or to have granted Grammarly permission to use their names. Alex Gay, VP of Product and Corporate Marketing at Grammarly's parent company Superhuman, explained to The Verge that these experts are referenced "because their published works are publicly available and widely cited."
In its user guide for the feature, Grammarly adds a clarification: "References to experts in Expert Review are for informational purposes only and do not indicate any affiliation with Grammarly or endorsement by those individuals or entities."
That statement is fairly straightforward, I suppose. But it begs the question: How exactly is this an "expert review"? Perhaps it isn't at all, as historian C.E. Aubin pointed out to Wired: "These are not expert reviews, because there are no 'experts' involved in producing them."
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Wait, so 'Expert Review' doesn't involve actual experts? That's a bit misleading. I used it and the suggestions felt generic, like any other AI tool. The marketing hype is real, but the 'expertise' seems to be just a fancy label for their LLM. Makes you wonder about the ethics of naming features like this.





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