AI for Editing Writing: Tips To Improve Content Beyond Good Grammar

How to use AI for writing: Best practices for writers and editors

AI tools for writing have advanced significantly from basic grammar checkers. They now improve content quality, enforce compliance, and assist with personalized content, translation, and search optimization. While spelling and grammar remain important, focusing on tone, readability, consistency, terminology, accuracy, and brand compliance is equally crucial. 

In this blog post, we’ll explore best practices for using AI in content creation, useful features of AI writing tools, and how they help writers with their work.

When asked how Acrolinx teams use AI to write, we recommend that you get AI to assist you in writing, without doing all the writing for you. Here are a few examples: 

1. Use AI to add variety in word choice and sentence structure

Unsure of how to market the same message to different audience demographics? AI tools often suggest alternative words or different ways to structure sentences. This can improve the variety in your writing and help you avoid repetition. However, be sure to evaluate the suggestions carefully, especially when considering tone, context, and the intended audience. AI may suggest synonyms, but not all will have the right nuance for the message you’re trying to convey. And make sure you’re not adding too much spice — or you’ll dilute the distinct brand voice that makes your organization easy to recognize. 

2. Guide a logical structure and flow of ideas

Some AI tools offer insights into the overall flow of your writing — how well ideas are connected and whether transitions between sections are smooth. This helps make sure that your writing is logical. It’s important for making content accessible by making it easy to read and understand. 

3. Balance creativity and governance

AI is sometimes too rigid, encouraging overly formal language or uniform styles that may strip away the creative elements that make your brand distinct. Or it can add too much variation to words and phrases that should be standardized across different types of content. While AI can polish your writing, it’s important to maintain your unique brand voice, whether through humor, metaphor, or regional expressions. 

Instead, use AI to edit your text and provide suggestions on how to improve it, but don’t let it write the text for you – you don’t want to end up with generic-sounding content, which is easily recognizable as AI-generated text. 

3. Keep language inclusive

Some AI-powered solutions (like Acrolinx) come equipped with features that help foster inclusion through word choice. This is especially useful in business or international writing where tone and cultural sensitivity are crucial. During review, a tool that reviews inclusive language can flag content that might be discriminatory or easily misunderstood, helping you speak to a broader, more diverse audience. 

4. Customize AI writing software to your writing style 

If you’re writing for a specific industry or audience, some AI tools allow you to customize their feedback based on your previous work or specific text examples. This customization helps the AI better understand your preferences, making its suggestions more relevant to your style and subject matter.

The best AI writing tools do much more than fix grammar mistakes. They improve deeper aspects of writing, from tone and consistency to document structure and compliance with style guides. Acrolinx, an example, goes beyond basic grammar by offering enterprise-wide governance and actionable insights that streamline content creation, to make sure it meets enterprise content standards and industry regulations.

Key elements of an AI writing assistant

When it comes to choosing the right AI writing tool for your enterprise, the keyword is enterprise. 

Some tools aren’t right for highly-regulated industries or organizations with a complex terminology database. They also may not deliver the business value that leadership cares about. And if employees choose and use an AI writing assistant on their own accord, you’re essentially just adding more (invisible) freelance writers to your enterprise, without control and oversight over how well these tools execute on your enterprise content strategy. 

So when looking for AI tools for writing and editing, they absolutely must include the following elements:

Compliance to industry standards

In many industries, it’s important that your writing follows certain rules, whether legal guidelines or company-specific style guides. Some AI writing software, like Acrolinx, is built to help writers make sure that their content complies with these rules. These tools don’t just check for grammar — they also flag terminology and phrases that might go against regulatory or branding standards. For example, in corporate settings, you may need to follow strict guidelines about how certain products are described or how legal disclaimers are presented.

Acrolinx guarantees compliance by digitizing style guides and regulatory requirements into helpful suggestions and automated quality gates in the content supply chain. This goes beyond mere grammar checks. Acrolinx flags terminology, phrases, and brand guidelines to align with your specific regulatory standards. For example, it helps companies make sure that product descriptions and legal disclaimers meet both corporate and legal requirements, avoiding costly fines and cultivating customer trust​​.

Consistency in brand messaging 

When multiple writers work on different pieces of content, it’s easy for the tone and message to become inconsistent. Advanced AI writing tools help keep things uniform by applying the same rules across all your writing. Whether you’re working on emails, blog posts, or reports, these tools make sure that your brand voice stays consistent. 

AI guardrails for content 

AI guardrails act as boundaries to prevent your writing from deviating too far from set standards. These are especially helpful for writers working in professional or technical settings where specific styles or tones need to be maintained. For example, if you’re writing for a legal audience, your AI writing tool makes sure that your language remains formal and precise, preventing casual language or jargon from slipping in.

Actionable insights based on data

An advanced AI writing assistant doesn’t just offer vague feedback like “clarify this sentence.” It provides actionable insights based on data. Acrolinx, for example, scores your content based on how well it meets your brand guidelines. This score is broken down into specific areas like tone, clarity, and compliance, so you know exactly where to make improvements. These insights are particularly valuable because they allow you to focus your revisions on specific, measurable goals.

Acrolinx, for example, uses a scoring system to measure how well content aligns with company-specific writing guidelines. The score breaks down into specific areas like clarity, tone, and inclusive language. This helps writers make specific improvements. These insights allow teams to focus their revisions on measurable goals, improving content quality and performance over time​​.

Integrations with your desired authoring tools

For a fast-paced enterprise content supply chain, efficiency is key. AI writing software should integrate seamlessly with the platforms you already use, such as Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or content management systems. This allows you to access AI-powered feedback directly within your usual writing tools, saving time, and reducing review rounds by bringing your style guide directly to writers. 

Semantic analysis and keyword optimization

Advanced AI writing tools can do more than just fix surface-level errors. They also provide feedback on how well you’ve addressed specific keywords and answered common audience questions. These tools usually improve content by making sure that your key points are clear, well-supported, and logically connected. Some can also prepare your writing for SEO by simultaneously boosting findability while scoring it for readability and originality, helping your content perform better online with greater authority and trustworthiness. 

The 10 best AI writing tools

Who doesn’t love the convenience of a quick overview of what writers are using to improve their content beyond spelling and grammar? This list isn’t exhaustive, but includes a few of the most popular AI writing tools on the market today.

Improve content quality with Acrolinx

As enterprises adopt AI tools for writing, it’s crucial to approach them as strategic assets rather than gimmicks. Acrolinx stands out by integrating AI into content workflows, going beyond basic grammar checks to provide enterprise-wide content governance and compliance. Unlike other tools designed primarily for content marketing or creative writing, Acrolinx focuses on aligning all content — whether created by humans or AI — with your company’s standards for clarity, tone, terminology, and inclusivity​​.

What sets Acrolinx apart is its enterprise-level focus on quality control at scale. Acrolinx can automatically review and govern thousands of enterprise content assets in different formats; checking it for compliance with both brand and regulatory guidelines​​. This isn’t about fixing a few spelling errors; it’s about creating clear, compliant, and strategic content that drives results across various departments — from technical documentation, to marketing, legal, and support. 

Acrolinx doesn’t just help you generate more content faster, like some other tools. Instead, it focuses on ensuring that every piece of content your enterprise produces is aligned with your goals, reducing risk while enhancing efficiency. With Acrolinx, AI becomes a strategic partner in building a robust, scalable content supply chain that makes best use of what AI has to offer.