Grammarly Inc., the startup best known for its artificial intelligence-powered proofreading and writing productivity software, today announced the launch of nine specialized AI agents designed to assist with writing tasks.

The new agents are available within Docs, Grammarly’s AI-native writing surface that embeds intelligent assistance directly into the writing process. The lineup includes agents that surface insights, provide targeted feedback, locate citations, offer subject-matter expertise, proofread like a personal writing partner, and check for plagiarism.

“We think there’s still a gap today in the way people and AI are working together to get things done,” Luke Behnke, Grammarly’s vice president of product management, told SiliconANGLE in an interview. “We felt it was important to break these up into what we’re calling agents — who show up at the right time, in the right context, and bring help to people in the moment.”

Specific agents include an AI detector that can provide a score of whether the text is likely AI- or human-generated. Although it’s well-known across the industry that these tools are often unreliable and not foolproof, the company suggested that the tool could be used to make writing content more authentic.

Another is a paraphraser agent that adapts writing to a desired tone, audience and style. Users can choose to sound more academic, professional or creative, and can even set a custom voice.

The reader reactions agent predicts how a target audience might interpret a text, whether it’s a manager, a client or a professor, and suggests adjustments to avoid confusion. A citation finder agent automatically searches for credible sources, formats citations and checks academic compliance, saving students hours of manual work.

For students, an AI-grader agent accepts uploaded grading rubrics, then evaluates work against instructor expectations. “You can drag and drop your rubric into the AI grader agent and it will actually create feedback for you, even pulling information about that professor or class from the university,” added Behnke.

Although much of today’s announcement focuses on students, Behnke said organizations and professionals have also benefited from the agentic AI push as well. “The most interesting thing we’ve seen is professionals adopting our tone of voice agent… pasting in their own writing so we can build their voice for them,” he said.

Combined with Grammarly’s existing proofreading tools, these new agents aim to give writers a higher level of discourse, helping them refine work from multiple angles.

The company is also rolling out an integrated AI chat assistant for brainstorming, summarizing, and making suggestions, similar to other AI chatbots, but embedded in the writing process.

This lean-in to AI agents and the new AI-enabled writing surface are part of the company’s first phase of a “redesigned Grammarly” built on agentic AI that will help transform how students and professionals approach writing and productivity.

“We are in the midst of a transformation, one that will likely require us to change the name of the parent company,” Behnke said. “We don’t see Grammarly going anywhere as a product.”

Late last year Grammarly acquired the AI productivity platform Coda Project Inc. and earlier this year the company acquired the popular AI-powered productivity email app Superhuman. These acquisitions, in addition to the lean into AI agents has signaled a shift for Grammarly away from a simple proofreading platform towards a broader productivity suite.

Image: Grammarly