What happened

Grammarly ignited a major firestorm when its AI-powered "Expert Review" feature (User Guide) drew fierce condemnation from the experts whose identities and life's work were used without consent to commercially power the tool's writing suggestions.

Grammarly owner Superhuman markets Expert Review as a way to "meet the expectations of your discipline and your project by drawing on insights from subject matter experts and trusted publications." Writers open a document, pick a scholar from the list, and receive AI-generated feedback modelled on that person's research and style. The system can rewrite sections of a paper based on its suggestions.

Wired reported that the feedback is written as though it is coming directly from well-known authors, whether those authors are living or not. Historian Verena Krebs discovered Exoert Review users are able to pick historian David Abulafia as one of the available "experts" to check their paper. Abulafia died in January 2026.

The Verge found that the tool also puts words in the mouths of real journalists including Nilay Patel and Casey Newton working at The New York Times, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, and other publications. 

None of the people named were involved in building the feature, none were contacted beforehand, and none gave the company permission to use their identities this way. Nor did Superhuman ensure the AI's "advice" aligned with the experts' real-world opinions. 

To make matters worse, the system provided broken links to "source" material and used outdated job titles for the people it was mimicking.

Why it happened

The feature appears designed to increase user trust and differentiation by attaching AI-generated feedback to recognisable expert personas rather than anonymous machine output. 

Grammarly’s parent company, Superhuman, says it relied on the fact that these experts’ work is “publicly available” to justify using their names and styles, rather than obtaining explicit licences or consent.

The U.S. lacks clear federal rules on creating synthetic versions of real people, leaving a patchwork of state laws, a regulatory gap that companies like Grammarly appear to have exploited.