How To AI: Best AI Tools for Writers

Many writers view artificial intelligence as an enemy coming to replace them. Still, AI is also a tool writers can use to help them with the creative process—particularly regarding the nettlesome basics of grammar and spelling. 

This article will examine some of the tools that use generative AI to help writers with their words and get their stories out there. 

Generative AI refers to AI models that use prompts to generate text, images, videos, and audio. While some of these tools predate GPT-4, the launch of the advanced version of ChatGPT in March has fueled the rush of generative AI into the mainstream.

Grammarly

Grammarly has helped many writers with grammar and punctuation.  A subscription to Grammarly Premium starts at $30 for a monthly plan and $12 monthly for a year. Grammarly also offers a browser extension that lets students check their grammar and spelling across the internet. Grammarly also provides a mobile app.

In April 2023, Grammarly launched Grammarly GO, a generative AI assistant built on OpenAI’s GPT-3 that aims to help writers with ideas for content, projects, and brainstorming questions.

Hemingway

Like Grammarly, Hemingway, named for the famed author and journalist, is a text editor that lets writers upload or write their content directly into the editor. Hemingway comes in two tiers, free and a $10 a month Plus Plan. Hemingway’s Plus Plan is where the app shines, and like Grammarly, it will highlight words and grammar that can use work. Hemingway’s AI will also provide suggestions to rewrite a word or sentence.

Hemingway’s Plus Plan allows users to input up to 5,000 AI-generated sentences per month for both the annual and monthly versions of the plan.

Writesonic

Writesonic is one of a suite of generative AI applications from San Francisco-based Writesonic. Writesonic includes an AI article writer, a browser extension, a paraphrasing tool, a text summarizer, a story generator, and a text expander. 

Compared to other editors, Writesonic’s main selling point is the Audiosonic, a text-to-speech generator that offers 10 minutes of human-like audio with a paid Writesonic plan. 

The Writesonic includes four tiers, starting with a free plan and 10,000 words per month, $13 per month for an annual plan, $16 for a freelancer plan, and $50h for an annual Enterprise plan. Each plan includes access to OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, respectively. Writesonic tiers also have access to the Photosonic AI image-generator and Chatsonic, the platform’s version of ChatGPT.

Sudowrite

Sudowrite is a text editor that the developers say uses over two dozen AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude 2, OpenAI’s GPT 3.5, and GPT-4, to help writers edit and improve their work. In addition to editing text, Sudowrite says users can input text in any language, and the editor will work to edit and provide suggestions. 

Sudowrite has three tiers, starting with 225,000 credits for $10 per month for an annual subscription plan, 1 million for $22 per month for a professional plan, and the max tier of 2 million credits for $44 monthly. Sudowrite does offer month-to-month plans at $19, $29, and $59, respectively. 

Lore Machine AI

For writers who also need to include images with their words, Lore Machine allows users to generate images, graphic novels, movie storyboards, and animation based on user prompts. Still in beta, Lore Machine uses calls to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion to bring user ideas to visual life. Subscriptions to Lore Machine come in three tiers: $5 for 100 tokens or 100 images and 50,000 words, $10 for 220 tokens or 220 images and 110,000 words, and $20 for 500 tokens or 500 images and 250,000 words, respectively.

While generative AI was a crucial topic in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes earlier this year, Lore Machine’s Thobey Campion said anticipation for Lore Machine is high, with over 25,000 people on the waitlist.

”We initially built the system for screenwriters to visualize their scripts—that was certainly the first cohort to start signing up,” Campion said. "Living in LA, the most evident use case for Lore Machine was the Hollywood production system.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.