Grammarly brings its AI-based proofreading tools to Google Docs

Let's face it: no one is perfect. And this is doubly true with regard to spelling, grammar and punctuation. But these mistakes of writing could cost you dearly. A recent study found that professionals with one to four promotions had 45% more grammar errors than those with six to nine promotions.

That's why Alex Schevchenko and Max Lyvtvyn, two software developers based in Kiev, Ukraine, set about building a cloud-based, algorithmic English language verifier that can read just about any document. They launched their solution – Grammarly – in 2009, and announced today the support of one of the most popular word processors on the Web: Google Docs.

Grammarly on Google Docs launched in beta last month, but the integration is coming online for more users this week. It requires Grammarly extension for Chrome; when active, you will see the Grammarly logo in the lower right corner.

"It was one of the most requested features by our users. We basically had to build it, "Lytvyn told VentureBeat in an interview. "The challenge was [making] Work in a grammatical way with Google's rendering engine in their products. We spend a lot of time creating something robust enough that when Google updates something, it does not break. "

Grammatical verification of errors in real time as you type, highlighting problem phrases and words in bright red underlining. By clicking on an error, you display a suggestion card with options to accept it or report it, ignore it, add it to your personal dictionary or view an explanation.

Google Docs tools come in two forms: proofreading and vocabulary enhancement. The first performs checks on the contextual spelling (eg, misuse of losing / losing), grammar (subject-verb agreement, misused items, etc.), punctuation (commas and missing or redundant dots) , sentence structure sentence structure), and style. The improvement of the vocabulary, meanwhile, shows synonyms that allow to "diversify your writing".

Not all features are free. Citation suggestions and style suggestions are hidden behind the $ 29.95 per month Premium Grammy Plan. The same goes for goals, which provide writing recommendations based on the intentions, audiences, emotions, and areas that you specify.

And not everyone went on Google Docs at launch. One notable omission is Grammar Plagiarism, which finds non-original passages by scanning a database of eight billion web pages.

Lyvtvyn said the team will push for "full compatibility" across all platforms in the coming months.

In addition to Google Docs, WordPress, Medium and other platforms, Grammarly spelling tools are available on smartphones in the form of a grammar keyboard, a keyboard replacement for iOS and Android that analyzes text messages, documents and e-mails. -mails. English dialects: American, British, Canadian and Australian. Premium Grammarly users get style and vocabulary recommendations.

"Users are asking us to provide more mobile support because there is so much communication [happening] there, "said Lyvtvyn.

For documents and platforms that are not supported by the Grammarly Chrome extension or the Google Docs integration, there is the Grammar Editor, a web-based word processor that has recently received new layer of paint. It can ingest files in a variety of formats (such as .txt and .docx) and has the same suite of features offered by its other applications, as well as Document Insights, which displays statistics such as the number of unique words used and their length. average. words, estimated reading and speech time, and an overall readability score.

The launch of the Google Docs integration comes after Google announced a Google Docs grammar check feature. It is currently available through Google's Early Adopter program and, like Grammarly, detects misused items, incorrectly used subordinate clauses, and more.

A little over a year ago, in May 2017, Grammarly raised $ 110 million from General Catalyst, IVP and Spark Capital, its first venture. More than 10 million people have downloaded its Chrome extension, and across all platforms, Grammarly has more than 15 active users per day.