4 Best AI Tools for Editors in 2025

Thanks to advances in AI editing tools, editors now have powerful technology to help them streamline copyediting and content editing tasks. The trouble is there are so many AI editing options out there that it can be overwhelming. In this article, we'll review the four AI editing tools I recommend the most—ChatGPT, editGPT, NotebookLM, and Claude—and see what they have to offer modern editors. I'll break down their key features, user experiences, pros and cons, and pricing so you can make an informed decision about which ones are right for you.

1. ChatGPT

Link: https://chatgpt.com/

ChatGPT is among the best AI editing tools available because of its versatility. Think of it as an AI Swiss Army knife. It offers editors numerous opportunities to incorporate it into their workflows, from copyediting to content editing to fact-checking, making it an indispensable tool for the modern editor.

Key Editing Features

Copyediting

ChatGPT can perform first-pass copyediting, correcting grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors with stunning accuracy while also aligning text to a specified style guide like The Chicago Manual of Style or the Associated Press Stylebook. Because ideation is a top strength, it excels with writing headlines, titles, subtitles, decks, you name it.

For the legions of editors who aren’t enamored with formatting references, ChatGPT could make your eyes misty. ChatGPT can take author-garbled references and format them in a snap, whether you’re using APA, MLA, Chicago, or another style. Plus, because it is connected to the internet, it can track down current information, such as missing elements in references, and fill in the blanks.

An example of ChatGPT's output

Content Editing

ChatGPT helps with content editing by performing various analyses on text. For nonfiction content, these include readability assessment, sentiment analysis, and content gap analysis. Fiction editors can use it to analyze character, pacing, dialogue, and more.

Research and Fact-Checking

In February 2025, ChatGPT's Deep Research debuted. The ChatGPT Deep Research feature for editors helps verify facts and source credible references, making it invaluable for in-depth editorial projects. Deep Research creates detailed reports by searching current websites, academic papers, and other resources and generating precise summaries and analyses on the topic. First, the user explains the topic they would like to have researched. Next, Deep Research asks clarifying questions. Then, it goes off for up to 30 minutes to find relevant sources and compile the insights, often responding with reports that are 10 pages or longer. Editors can integrate Deep Research into their workflow by using it to verify facts via the report's citations, sourcing trustworthy references, exploring niche topics, and obtaining the latest data or statistics—all without leaving the ChatGPT interface.

User Experience

ChatGPT is incredibly user-friendly because it understands and uses conversational language and its no-frills interface is easy to navigate. This means you don’t need many technological skills to operate it. Plus, for most tasks, it works so fast it will likely complete your request before you can finish your next sip of coffee.

Pros and Cons

ChatGPT for editors wins with its versatility and speed. It is also among the best for ease of use. It can be incorporated into current editorial workflows relatively easily. For instance, you can add documents directly from your Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive. You can also request that ChatGPT return text as a .doc file format.

One downside is the frequency of updates. New features and interface tweaks are rolled out so often that it can be hard to keep up. Also, while there are data privacy options, for users who have plans other than Teams and Enterprise, these settings can be hard to find and vaguely worded.

Pricing

ChatGPT has multiple plans. There is a free plan, which gives limited access, a Plus plan, which is $20 USD per month, and group options.

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2. editGPT

Link: https://editgpt.app/

EditGPT is an AI-powered copyediting tool. It has two versions: a browser extension that works inside ChatGPT and a standalone text editor with a broader range of features. This editGPT review will look at both.

Key Editing Features

Browser Extension

The browser extension lets you edit directly within ChatGPT. It shows the changes ChatGPT made to text and allows you to accept or reject them inside the ChatGPT interface. This integration streamlines the editorial workflow, reducing the number of applications you need.

An example of editGPT working inside of the ChatGPT interface. The red text with strikethroughs indicates text that ChatGPT deleted. The green text indicates text ChatGPT added.

Text Editor

If you’re looking for a low barrier to entry with AI editing tools, try the editGPT text editor available on the editGPT website. Learning the art of AI prompt writing is not required to use this tool. Instead, you can click prebuilt buttons that run editing prompts for you. For instance, you can select “Polish,” “Rewrite,” “Casual,” or “Academic” on your dashboard and then watch as the text changes accordingly. One of the standout editGPT text editor features is the ability to add your own custom prompts, which will then appear as buttons on your dashboard. These can be tailored for the specific audience, tone, or format you seek. Editors can use a sequence of prompt buttons to make quick work of a copyediting project.

User Experience

The user experience with the editGPT browser extension working inside of ChatGPT is easy and convenient. You can very quickly see how many changes ChatGPT made to the text, along with the specific deletions and additions. Users can also see what percentage of the text ChatGPT rewrote. This helps editors quickly determine whether ChatGPT accurately executed the depth of revision requested.

The user experience with the editGPT text editor is rather straightforward and user-friendly. The ability to push a button to run a prompt simplifies the AI editing process significantly, making it accessible even to tech-averse editors. While it may take some initial clicking around to understand the more advanced features, a few minutes of focused exploration is enough to grasp them. The learning curve is not that steep.

Pros and Cons

The editGPT browser extension is nearly all pros. It's easy to use. It's incredibly helpful. It gives you control over the edit without having to leave ChatGPT. The only con is that the percentage of text changed it displays seems to include the words in the prompt, so it's not completely accurate, but it's close enough.

EditGPT’s text editor interface makes AI editing accessible and user-friendly while offering a high degree of control over the copyediting process. One standout feature is the ability to import and export Word files while maintaining track changes. One drawback to the text editor is that some prompt button names are ambiguous, so it takes trial and error to determine the extent of revisions they perform.

Pricing

The editGPT browser extension is free. For the text editor, there is a free plan that allows editing of up to 10,000 words per month, with limited access to advanced features. The Pro plan, currently priced at $10 USD per month, allows up to 200,000 words per month, along with full functionality including importing/exporting documents and saving custom prompts.

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3. NotebookLM

Link: https://notebooklm.google/ 

NotebookLM is an AI-powered tool from Google that helps people organize and understand information. It works by analyzing uploaded documents. It can generate summaries and insights based on the uploaded sources. It also has a chat feature you can use to ask questions about the material or to instruct NotebookLM about which types of information to have it collect from the sources.

Key Editing Features

Since NotebookLM excels at analysis and data extraction, there are myriad ways to incorporate this technology into an editorial workflow. Here are some ideas:

• Prompt NotebookLM to generate a detailed synopsis or chapter-by-chapter summaries to get a quick overview of the material.

• Use NotebookLM for manuscript editing to generate supplementary materials like character lists, setting lists, plot timelines, subtopic lists, and glossaries.

• Have NotebookLM be a consistency checker by querying to verify a claim or detail matches what's stated elsewhere in the document.

  
  

User Experience

NotebookLM has a similar interface as other chatbots with the addition of a nifty organizational feature. Output from chats can be stored as "notes" in each "notebook." You can create a notebook, loaded with the project's files, for each editing project, and create notes about the document, such as a setting list and timeline. Then you can use the notebook to hold and organize all of the logistical information about the project for easy reference.

Pros and Cons

NotebookLM is the first publicly accessible generative AI tool that can reliably work with long documents, such as book-length manuscripts, which is something editors have been waiting years for. The reliability comes because it only pulls information from the sources users provide to it, making it far less likely to "hallucinate" (which is when a generative AI model makes things up). It is an incredible assistant for analysis and data extraction, but a limitation is its inability to do copyediting or line editing. While NotebookLM can create many types of notes and helps with organization, it currently offers minimal options for personalizing or structuring the notes to your preferences. It also lacks the ability to export notes to Word or Google Docs. To use NotebookLM, you must have a personal Google account or a participating Google Workspace account.

Being a Google product, data privacy and security are a natural concern. The way Google handles data depends on the type of account you have. NotebookLM states on its homepage that it does not use uploaded sources or queries to train new versions of the model.

Pricing

There is a free version of NotebookLM that offers enough usage for most editors. A paid version with higher usage limits is available through the Google Workspace tiers.

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4. Claude

Link: https://claude.ai/

Claude is a generative AI, the same kind of artificial intelligence as ChatGPT. When considering Claude vs. ChatGPT for editors, Claude distinguishes itself with stronger guardrails, reduced hallucinations, and superior text rephrasing capabilities.

Key Editing Features

Claude includes nearly the same set of copyediting and content editing capabilities as ChatGPT, making it a versatile option. Claude is known for being the best writer among AI tools in this category. It excels at rephrasing text for readability, tone, and style, and crafting content based on instructions you provide. It’s a good choice for editors whose jobs require writing or rewriting.

User Experience

From a design perspective, Claude is quite pretty. It looks more designed and aesthetically pleasing than ChatGPT. Users with dyslexia may appreciate the option to use a dyslexia-friendly font (shown in image) Overall, it can feel less intuitive to navigate compared to ChatGPT.

Pros and Cons

Claude stands out for its ability to produce quality writing and handle a variety of copyediting and content editing tasks competently. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, emphasizes ethical AI development, which is a big reason some people prefer to use it. It also comes with data privacy built into the system automatically, where ChatGPT requires users of most plans to opt into data security measures. Another major plus when comparing Claude to ChatGPT is that Claude has stricter guardrails that make it less prone to hallucinations than ChatGPT.

However, a notable difference is that Claude is not connected to the internet. This means it can’t integrate fact-checking into the editing process because its accuracy relies solely on its training data, which can occasionally be outdated or incorrect. Alongside Claude, you’d need to use outside fact-checking resources. Also, because you can’t add the editGPT browser extension to it, it’s more cumbersome to discern the edits Claude makes. (You can work around this by pasting Claude's output into a Word document and using the "Compare Docs" feature.) While it does have a Google Drive integration, it does not have a OneDrive integration, though users can manually upload Microsoft Word documents.

Pricing

Claude offers pricing tiers that begin with a free version that has a usage limit based on demand. The Pro version, priced at $20 USD per month, grants access to Claude's most advanced AI model, which offers better editing and writing suggestions.

How to Choose Which Tools to Use

As an editor, finding the best AI editing tools is essential for simplifying your editorial workflow and improving your work. Carefully comparing features, pricing, and user experience across ChatGPT, editGPT, NotebookLM, and Claude will help you determine the right combination of paid and free AI copyediting and content editing tools.

You don't have to go all-in and buy the paid versions of every program. Keep in mind there are excellent free AI tools for editors that can significantly improve your productivity without any cost, including the basic plans of ChatGPT and NotebookLM. Take a moment to think about what you really need, and then mix and match the paid and free versions that work best for you and your budget. By strategically integrating these tools into your AI editing workflow, you can boost your productivity and quality without breaking the bank.

Erin Servais teaches editors to upskill with artificial intelligence through her AI for Editors courses and corporate training. She is known worldwide as the leader in AI education for editors, writers, and other publishing professionals.

A version of this article first appeared in the Editorial Freelancers Association's newsletter, where Erin is writing a series about AI and editing. AI Use Disclosure: The author used AI to assist with researching and refining this article.

Email Erin: Erin@aiforeditors.com

Editing Beyond the Red Pen: A Beginner's Guide to AI

Picture this: You’re sitting at your desk, polishing pages of text with only a few keystrokes. With each tap of your fingertips, sentences tighten, grammar errors vanish, and punctuation falls perfectly into place. By the time you reach the bottom of your first cup of coffee, you've finished a project that once would've taken all morning.

This isn’t science fiction. It’s what work can be like right now when you know how to use AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude. This technology is an evolution in how editors work—like the shift from editing using pen and paper to the word processor. Editors who lean into the AI revolution will be able to edit faster and better (yes, better) plus have job security in an increasingly AI-enhanced workforce.

If you haven’t started exploring AI, the time is now. Go ahead and dive in. Here are six essential tips to help you get started.

1. Be Specific

The number one idea to keep in mind about AI is this:

AI does what you tell it to do, not necessarily what you want it to do.

Clarity is key. Provide the AI with specific instructions so you get the results you want. Instead of prompting it vaguely to “Edit this,” instruct it to “Copyedit this corporate report to improve clarity and to correct errors of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Follow Associated Press style.”

For editing and writing tasks, consider including the following elements to make your prompts specific:

Task (copyedit, rewrite)

Format (blog post, checklist, email)

Audience (grade level, profession)

Tone (casual, friendly, professional)

Example: Instead of "Improve this web page text," try "Please revise this web page text by improving SEO, incorporating keywords related to urban chicken keeping, and making the language suitable for a general audience with a seventh-grade reading level."

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2. Ask Follow-Up Prompts

Think of the initial response ChatGPT or Claude gives you as the first draft of a work in progress. To help it revise, use follow-up prompts. These are instructions you send after your first prompt that allow you to tailor the AI's output to your specific requirements.

Often, follow-up prompts include more details about the format, audience, and tone.

Example: After receiving the AI’s initial edit, you might realize the tone isn't quite right for the target audience. To refine the text, you could use a follow-up prompt like "Please rewrite this to have a more conversational tone."

3. Think Shorter

Many popular AI tools don’t yet have the capability to reliably work with large pieces of text. You can technically upload a 100-page document, but it can’t give you a thorough and quality analysis of it yet.

When content editing, think at the level of chapter and article. When copyediting, think about page and paragraph. This method of chunking content helps tools like ChatGPT to give you focused and precise results.

Know more capability is coming. Learn these techniques now, and you’ll be ready when it’s here.

Example: Instead of uploading the entire manuscript of a novel and asking for a developmental edit, paste a section from a chapter and use a prompt, such as, “Here is the opening of the novel’s chapter 7. Please suggest improvements to better incorporate the setting into the scene.”

4. Consider the Whole Workflow

To make the most out of AI in editing, consider how you can use it throughout your entire editorial workflow, not just with the actual editing part. As you go about your daily work, ask yourself: How can AI save me time?

Here are some other ways to incorporate AI:

Drafting Emails: Quickly generate professional and well-structured emails. Have it make templates for routine emails (like proposal submissions and testimonial requests) and help you find the right words when you have to send awkward and tricky emails (like late-payment requests).

Creating Marketing Material: From catchy taglines to compelling copy, ChatGPT and Claude can help you brainstorm and craft marketing content. To be really efficient, think how you can use AI to repurpose content. Within minutes, it can write the first draft of a blog post and then convert it into a promotional email and social media posts. Now that it has a built-in image generator, it can even create an image to go along with the text.

Researching and Fact-Checking: Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine that's like the Google we always wanted. Enter a simple search query, and it quickly composes an encyclopedic summary entry on the topic and cites its sources so you can double-check. Rather than scrolling through pages of unusable links, Perplexity gives you high-quality sources you can trust, making your researching and fact-checking a breeze.

Making Custom Word Macros: ChatGPT can build macros for Microsoft Word that you can use with every project or specific, single-use macros that will save you time with one project.

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5. Invest in ChatGPT's Paid Version

The editors who dismiss ChatGPT’s capabilities often have not experimented with the paid version. The free version can give you only a fraction of a glimpse into what the paid version can do. It’s like comparing a rowboat with a rocket ship.

The paid version offers quicker response times, vastly improved output, increased accuracy, and priority access to new features. ChatGPT can save you days of work every month and is worth the monthly $20 subscription. You can register for a paid plan here: https://openai.com/

6. You Still Have to Do Your Job

AI is not a replacement for human editors. Editors bring a depth of understanding, emotional intelligence, and cultural awareness that AI cannot replicate. It can conduct basic editing with accuracy and offer helpful content-editing suggestions, but it can't fully grasp the nuance or make the context-specific judgment calls that professional editors can. And, just like human editors, it sometimes makes mistakes.

Using these skills will allow AI to augment your capabilities. This will free up time so you can focus on the parts of editing that require your unique human skills. Remember, AI is a powerful tool, but the true artistry of editing still lies in the hands of skilled editorial professionals, human ones.

Erin Servais helps editors upskill through AI. Her AI for Editors course is known worldwide as the #1 AI course for editors of all types, including medical editors, finance editors, education editors, corporate communications editors, and book editors.

A version of this article first appeared in the Editorial Freelancers Association's newsletter, where Erin is writing a series about AI and editing.

Email Erin: Erin@aiforeditors.com

How to Write and Refine ChatGPT Prompts to Get Best Results

Using ChatGPT centers on the act of writing prompts, which are directions you give ChatGPT to guide its responses. The higher the quality of prompts you feed ChatGPT, the better the work it can do for you.

Editors who want to use ChatGPT to speed up and simplify their work may begin by simply asking ChatGPT to “edit this.” This broad prompt will give you a result of edited text, but the result may have more and different changes than you seek. Instead, giving the AI more directions will allow you to fine-tune the response to be more closely aligned with your goal.

Keep in mind that even with a well-phrased prompt, you will likely need to give ChatGPT follow-up prompts to help it dial in on your specific needs. This will become a routine part of your process.

ChatGPT Prompt-Writing Basics

There are four core best practices for writing an effective ChatGPT prompt. It all comes down to being clear and specific.

1. Use Statements

Format instructions as statements instead of questions. This helps ChatGPT determine what you want it to do.

❌ "Can you write a paragraph explaining first-person point of view?"

🟢 "Write a paragraph explaining first-person point of view."

2. Be Specific

Make your requests detailed. Tell ChatGPT its exact next steps.

❌ "Edit this."

🟢 "Edit this corporate report to improve clarity and consistency and to correct errors of grammar, spelling, and punctuation."

3. Define Format

Specify format requirements in your prompt.

❌ "Write a blog post about the history of singular they."

🟢 "Write a 1,500–word blog post about the history of singular they. Use subheadings and bullet points. Use The Chicago Manual of Style."

4. Provide Context

Include relevant background and nuance. This helps ChatGPT narrow its response.

❌ "Is this a good title?"

🟢 "Considering this is a thriller novel set in Victorian England, is The Shadow's Grasp a fitting title?"

Refining Initial Responses

Even with a well-crafted prompt, the first output from ChatGPT often won’t meet your exact needs. The skillful user engages ChatGPT in a back-and-forth to tweak the initial response.

Here are examples of how to ask ChatGPT to refine its output:

1. Specify Changes

Clearly explain how you want the initial response to be changed.

• "Refine this response to use title case in headings instead of sentence case."

• "Change the examples to be relevant to podiatrists."

2. Identify Errors

Being a new technology, ChatGPT requires a bit of patience. It does not respond with accuracy every time. When using it to edit text, this can look like the program not catching every error. When using it to write, this can look like ChatGPT replying with information that is factually incorrect.

Rather than manually correcting errors ChatGPT misses (the whole point is to save you time and wear on your hands), explain the errors and instruct it to fix them.

• "Refine this response to ensure all numbers 1 through 9 are written as numerals."

• "Revise by placing the commas before closing quotation marks, not after."

3. Adjust Length

If you prompt ChatGPT to write text and the first response is too long or short, ask it to adjust the length.

• "Add a section about how about developmental editors can use ChatGPT."

• "Condense your response into one paragraph."

Try and Try Again

If your attempt to refine ChatGPT’s response still does not give you what you want, keep trying. Rephrase your prompt and try to make your directions more specific. Or open up a new chat and try the original prompt again. ChatGPT won’t answer in the exact same way twice, and sometimes starting with this clean slate is quicker than refining and refining a response that went off the path.

Want to learn more about ChatGPT?

Sign up for the ChatGPT for Editors course.

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Erin Servais is an editor, educator, and community builder. She founded the Editors Tea Club, an online space where editors gather for education and support, and she offers editor coaching through her company, Dot and Dash.

In her fifteen years in publishing, she has helped to bring hundreds of titles to print and has presented about editing and entrepreneurship across the United States and Canada. Erin serves on the board of directors for ACES: The Society for Editing.

She always tells ChatGPT please and thank you, just in case.

Email Erin: Erin@aiforeditors.com