Updated: Oct 13
A lot of concerns editors have about using AI are based on misunderstandings about what AI can and can’t do, and how AI fits into the editing process.
It’s normal and reasonable to worry about how AI will affect what we do as editors. But let’s base our concerns on what’s currently true, not our early experiences with AI or what we hear on the news.
In this article, we’ll tackle five enduring misconceptions so you’ll have a better understanding of how AI tools work, how they can help us be even better editors, and why they can’t replace a human editorial team.
AI Editing: Separating Facts from Fiction: Key Takeaways
Editors who understand how to use AI tools can do high-quality work in less time.
AI is not cheating; it’s just the newest tool for editors.
AI can copyedit in seconds, but it can’t replicate human judgment or experience.
Misconception 1: AI Is Not Safe to Use with Clients’ Text
There are ways to use AI tools that provide some data security. You need to know the specific policies for your AI tool of choice, however, because each is different.
For instance, in ChatGPT, training on your prompts, attachments, and AI’s responses to improve future models is on by default for personal accounts. You must go into your Settings and turn it off. Initially, Claude didn’t train on any user’s data but changed its training policies in mid-2025. Now all consumer plan users—Free, Pro, and Max—must actively opt out in Privacy Settings or their conversations may be used for training by default. Enterprise accounts for most AI platforms are automatically exempt from training.
In any case, temporary storage is required for every user, free or paid, personal or corporate. “Temporary” is a relative term that ranges from 30 days to 5 years.
Whichever tool you use, it’s wise to remove confidential or personal information from anything you upload or paste into an AI tool. You may also want to include only a few paragraphs relevant to your request instead of an entire document. And you should have your client’s or employer’s express and written permission before using any of their text with AI. Have a conversation about how you’ll use AI and the security measures you’ll take to protect their work. For freelance editors, it’s wise to also include a clause in your contract that makes it clear how you’ll use AI tools to support your work.
My Introductory to AI for Editors course has an entire module dedicated to AI ethics and privacy concerns with guidance for creating your own AI policy document.
Misconception 2: AI Can’t Be Trusted
For many editors, getting the facts right is part of our jobs. It’s understandable we’d be worried about earlier AI models’ hallucinations—the popular term for when AI generates incorrect information.
There has been much improvement over the years to make AI more accurate. You can expect fewer hallucinations, and you can expect it to still make mistakes.
There are several quality AI-powered research tools available now. Perplexity used to be my favorite for general use, but now all AI platforms (Claude, Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT, etc.) can do real-time web searches, and Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) derives its responses solely from resources you provide or select, so hallucinations are especially rare.
How do you use AI? Like using a search engine such as Google, you type in your query; but the similarity stops there. Where search engines provide lists of links with varying degrees of usefulness and reliability, AI delivers a response akin to a personalized encyclopedia entry.
At your request, AI can also provide citations and links to sources that are top-tier outlets: research journals, encyclopedias, and trusted news organizations. This speeds up research and fact-checking immensely, which ups the trust factor with AI tools because you can see exactly where they are getting their information.
Misconception 3: Using AI Is Cheating
AI can handle a lot of tasks on editors’ to-do lists and vastly speed up the process. When the work is suddenly so much easier, it can feel like using AI is cheating.
Think about this: Is using spellcheck cheating? Was it cheating when you thumbed through the dictionary to find an entry because you did not have every word in the English language memorized? Was it cheating when editors moved from marking up paper to using word processors?
Editing has always been a collaborative process between an editor’s own knowledge, experience, and skills and the tools they use—style guides, reference books, and, of course, technology. AI can be seen as just another tool in the resourceful editor’s toolkit.
When you use AI, it’s offering you suggestions, but you are still the one making the decisions of which to accept, as well as which resources to trust, and which facts to verify. You are always in control, using your knowledge of what is best for the writer and the reader.
Misconception 4: AI Is Not a Good Editor
Multipurpose AI tools like Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT can absolutely conduct copyedits (straightforward checks for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style) as well as a human can. Specialized AI tools like Draftsmith are built specifically for editing work.
I’ll admit that AI is often more accurate at copyediting than I am—and it’s way faster, completing an edit in minutes that would take me hours.
I’ve found the editors who say AI isn’t very skilled haven’t learned to use the tools correctly. For example, they’ll use a vague prompt like “edit this” and then claim victory when AI doesn’t make the precise changes they want. AI does what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do. If you want it to make a precise type of change, you only need to instruct it to do so.
For instance, here is a demo of a skill (a set of reusable instructions) I wrote for Claude for Word that conducts cross-reference checks, including writing margin comments to flag and explain the errors.
AI also excels with idea generation. When you ask it to examine a particular aspect of the text and offer suggestions for improvement, it can come back with a dozen ideas, some you may have never thought of on your own. You won’t want to pass along every idea AI comes up with to the writer, but it can certainly give you good ideas and help to spark ideas of your own.
Misconception 5: AI Can Replace Human Editors
AI tools have come a long way. Grammarly, for example, has evolved from a grammar checker into a suite of writing agents, and new AI-powered editing tools like Draftsmith are introduced every year. These tools can catch mechanical errors, suggest improvements in grammar and syntax, and improve readability.
Even so, no AI tool is a substitute for a skilled human editor, and here’s why.
Why AI Can’t Replace Human Editors
AI can catch mechanical errors, suggest improvements in grammar and syntax, and improve readability. But even after years of innovations, generative AI is still unreliable when it comes to nuances of language, such as irony, sarcasm, or subtle shifts in tone.
AI is trained mostly on text that follows grammar conventions, so it tends to stick with those norms. You’ll find that it struggles with allowing the creative freedom authors employ when purposefully bending or breaking language “rules.”
If editing were just fixing spelling and pushing commas around, then AI could do the job. But the role of an editor entails far more than technical correction. Editing involves a lot of soft skills.
Editors build relationships with authors. We provide personalized guidance, and we make judgment calls based on our experience, what we know about the author, and what we know about helping the author do their best work for their readers. Human editors offer encouragement and education and nurture talent.
Grammarly is not going to hop out of a computer to sit down with the author and explain to them how they can improve their writing, in precisely the way that works best for that individual author. AI tools cannot fully appreciate the cultural, historical, or personal backgrounds that shape a writer’s voice and message.
This means if editors are to surf this new technological wave successfully, we need to learn how to use AI tools so we can do our jobs faster and better than before—AI augmented, with a human in the loop and our humanity intact.
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Let’s be real: Since it was thrust upon us at the end of 2022, AI has been a growing part of our editing lives. By learning and experiencing what AI can and cannot do, we can include it as another powerful tool in our editing toolkit.
AI can help us with the nitty-gritty mechanics of editing, speed up our research and fact-checking, and even spark new ideas for improving a piece of writing. AI can’t replace the human touch we bring—our ability to connect with authors, understand the nuances of language, and make judgment calls based on our experience and expertise.
But with AI assisting us, we have more time to focus on what we do best: helping our writers write well.
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AI tools evolve quickly—their features, pricing, and data policies can change without much fanfare. The specifics in this article were accurate at publication. Before making decisions based on any tool mentioned here, check its website directly.
Erin Servais is the founder of the AI for Editors courses, the first AI training program built specifically for editorial professionals. Since launching it in August 2023, she has trained editors and content professionals from more than 20 countries, including people from Big Five publishers, Ivy League universities, US government and United Nations agencies, and major tech companies. She has presented on AI in content development for the Book Industry Study Group, the University of Chicago, the UNC Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Media, and the ConVEx conference, and she has written about AI and editing for the Editorial Freelancers Association and the Independent Book Publishers Association. Her work has been featured in Jane Friedman’s The Bottom Line and Mignon Fogarty’s AI Sidequest. A professional editor for more than 20 years, Erin is a former ACES board member and has taught copyediting at UC San Diego Extended Studies.
Have questions? Email Erin → Erin@aiforeditors.com