Every major technological advancement has been met with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. The calculator was said to spell the end of mathematical ability. More recently, spellcheck and grammar software were expected to make proofreaders redundant. The rise of artificial intelligence has sparked similar debates. With AI capable of generating articles, correcting grammar and even suggesting stylistic improvements in seconds, it's understandable that authors are asking whether they still need a human editor.
At Easypress, we believe that while AI may become a permanent feature of publishing, human editors are here to stay. Technical innovations of the past have undoubtedly changed the way we work, but they haven’t eliminated the need for skilled professionals – they have simply changed the tools available to them. And for authors and publishers who genuinely care about writing, editors will continue to play a valuable role.
It's important to acknowledge that AI might offer genuine benefits to editors. AI can identify obvious spelling mistakes, flag repeated words, suggest alternative phrasing and even point out narrative inconsistencies. It could also be used to help check a manuscript against a style sheet, reducing the time spent manually checking whether agreed conventions have been followed. Many editors are already beginning to incorporate AI into small parts of their workflow, much as they already use spelling and grammar checkers. Used carefully, it has the potential to save time on routine tasks.
However, editing has never been about simply correcting mistakes. It's about helping an author communicate more effectively while preserving what makes their writing uniquely theirs. The rest of this blog will explore the limitations of AI editing and why human judgement remains crucial.
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges with AI editing is that large language models (LLMs), the technology behind many generative AI tools, often present incorrect information with complete confidence. Unlike a human editor, AI doesn't know when it doesn't know something. It may invent facts, misinterpret context or suggest changes that sound plausible but make a piece of writing less accurate.
These kinds of errors are often referred to as ‘hallucinations’, and they have already started creeping into published works. In February 2026, Ars Technica retracted an article because it contained AI-generated quotations falsely attributed to a source. Similar problems have been found with references: research has shown that AI can create plausible citations to publications that do not exist.
Publishing errors of this kind can be embarrassing for authors and publishers, but they can be remarkably difficult to spot because they are presented so convincingly. Any facts, quotations or references introduced or amended by AI therefore need to be independently checked – potentially adding to an editor’s workload rather than reducing it!
Accuracy is only one part of editing. It also involves making judgement calls to preserve an author’s unique voice. One of AI's biggest limitations in this respect is that it doesn't understand what it's reading in the same way a human editor does. Large language models are exceptionally good at predicting and generating sequences of words because they are trained on vast amounts of text. That can produce fluent writing, but it isn't the same as understanding the intention behind a particular creative choice.
An experienced editor might preserve awkward syntax because it reflects a character's state of mind or distinctive voice. Likewise, they might leave repetition untouched because it creates emphasis or contributes towards the rhythm of a passage. Molly McCowan, a longtime editor and AI instructor at UC San Diego, gives the example of deliberately choppy, stilted sentences being used to convey a character's emotional distress. As she puts it, ‘AI sees those as errors. A human editor sees the intention’.
Questions of style rarely have universally correct answers: five different editors might approach the same piece of writing in five different ways, and each would be valid. Editing isn’t about rewriting an author's work into something that sounds generic. All writing has its own personality, and preserving that is one of the most valuable parts of the editing process.
Finally, another challenge for AI editing is that authors are, understandably, protective of their manuscripts. A book may represent years of research, personal experience or original creative work. Uploading that material into an AI platform raises questions about how it might be stored and reused.
Those concerns have been heightened by the wider controversy surrounding AI training data. Authors and publishers have brought numerous copyright cases alleging that books were used without permission to train LLMs. In July 2026, for example, a US federal court gave final approval to the $1.5 billion settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic, a case involving pirated copies of books used in the development of Claude.
Concerns about unpublished works are also reflected in the policies of some major publishers. For example, Elsevier instructs its journal editors not to upload authors' manuscripts, or any part of them, into generative AI tools because doing so may compromise confidentiality and data privacy rights. Sage similarly restricts its editors’ use of LLMs for tasks involving unpublished manuscripts, citing copyright concerns.
At Easypress, we believe that AI will become an increasingly useful tool for authors and editors. But tools do not replace expertise. Authors who value thoughtful feedback and careful judgement are likely to continue choosing human editors. The value of a professional editor therefore lies not in competing with AI for speed but in offering what technology cannot: nuance and understanding.
Easypress is a UK-based publishing software and services company with more than 20 years’ experience supporting publishers and authors around the world. We believe in embracing innovation where it genuinely improves the publishing process, while recognising the importance of the people behind great books.
If you would like to find out more about our publishing production services or the tools we provide to help create high-quality print and digital publications, please contact us. Alternatively, you can schedule a meeting at a time to suit you via our Calendly page.
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