AI21 Labs Ltd., an artificial intelligence research lab focused on natural language processing and generative AI, said today it’s hoping to spice up the lives of writers with the launch of Wordtune Spices, a new feature within its popular Wordtune editing platform.

Wordtune is an AI-powered writing companion that can understand content and meaning to help people write down their ideas in a clearer and more compelling way. Spices is a new feature in that platform that’s said to act as a writer’s assistant, generating a range of textual options that users can add to enhance the sentences they write. Not only does Spices suggest more colorful words, it can also search the internet and add statistics where relevant to strengthen the writer’s argument or enhance detail.

AI21 Labs said the tool is aimed at any kind of writer, from a student writing an essay to a marketer writing blog posts, or even business associates who are drafting reports. It says it’s aiming to take the stress out of long-form writing, which can be challenging for anyone.

Unlike other generative text platforms, though, Wordtune Spices doesn’t replace the writer, but rather serves as a co-writer, suggesting additional sentences or extra words that can be added to enhance the human’s writing. It can provide explanations and counterarguments, for example, add statistics and analogies, and even come up with inspirational quotes or jokes, if the writer desires.

One of the key features of Wordtune Spices that sets it apart from other AI assistants is that it always attributes its sources, giving credit to the quotes or statistics it suggests. In future, AI21 Labs said, it will add additional cues for Wordtune Spices so it can aid in professional writing, such as legal reports and healthcare, helping users to create industry-specific texts.

Andy Thurai, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc., said AI21 Labs is notable for emerging as the chief rival of the better known Open AI LLC, creator of the popular ChatGPT chatbot that recently took the internet by storm. He said it offers some advantages too, with one of the most significant being that its AI tools are based on a Large Language Model known as Jurassic-1, which can be custom trained to specific datasets. These datasets can be very small too, within the range of just 50 to 100 examples.

“This allows users to fine-tune Wordtune to their specific needs, which is unlike ChatGPT’s LLM, which trains itself using worldwide available text that may or may not fit specific needs,” Thurai said.

Another advantage of AI21’s Jurassic LLM is that it’s more useful for rewriting text, whereas ChatGPT is more about writing original text. That means Wordtune is an ideal application for AI21’s LLM, Thurai said, since Jurassic-1 is helpful with both language transformation and also rewriting text based on different personas.

“For example, you can choose a manager or executive persona from the options, and AI21’s Jurassic-1 will allow you to rewrite an email that fits an executive style of writing, versus a more generic writing style,” the analyst explained. “AI21 Labs has created something that’s able go toe-to-toe with ChatGPT in tests, and it has done so at a fraction of the investment OpenAI has made. Its Wordtune application can be embedded in regular applications such as Google Docs, LinkedIn and Twitter, making recommendations without the need to exit those apps.”

AI21 Labs co-founder and co-Chief Executive Ori Goshen said Wordtune is all about empowering writers, rather than replacing them with AI. “Spices is a toolbox that melds the best that both man and machine can offer, working alongside writers as a source of inspiration for better, more efficient and compelling writing,” he said.

Wordtune is available now as an add-on for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Microsoft Word, or it can be accessed directly through the Wordtune online editor.

Wordtune is just one of a number of AI-powered products created by AI21 Labs. The company has also created Wordtune Read, which is a tool that can analyze long documents in seconds and create a simplified summary. It helps users read and understand long and complicated texts faster and more efficiently. In addition, AI21 Labs has also created an advanced NLP system called Jurassic-X that’s used to train chatbots that rival ChatGPT.

The Jurassic-X system powers one of AI21 Labs’ quirkiest recent creations: an AI model of the late U.S. Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The model, called “Ask Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” has been trained on more than 27 years’ worth of Ginsburg’s Supreme Court opinions, interviews and speeches. It’s designed to respond to queries in the same manner that the real Ginsburg would have done.

Photo: Deeezy/Pixabay