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As of 13 August 2026, AI can proofread your work document.
Most people should do this themselves; the prompt is on this page.
Can you do it?
2 minutesto a draft.
15 minutesto something you’d act on.
Cost, all in£0
Skill needednone
Who has to check ityou
What the alternative costsGrammarly is an AI writing assistant that checks grammar, tone and rewrites wherever you type.
If this goes wrong: the document contains an altered meaning, missed error or unsuitable tone, which you can usually fix before sending by comparing it with the original.
What to actually do
Do it yourself
The route this page recommends
A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 15 minutes until you can act on the result.
How to actually do it
- Open a new chat in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and remove confidential client, colleague and company information that the recipient does not need to see.
- Gather the document, its intended reader, its purpose, the desired tone and any names, figures, dates or wording that must stay unchanged.
- Paste the prompt and the document into the chat, filling in the bracketed details and asking for British English.
- Compare the clean version and the change table with the original document, checking every name, figure, date, commitment and technical term against your source material.
- Apply only the changes you accept in your Word or Google Docs file, then read the complete document aloud or line by line to catch errors introduced during editing.
- Send or publish the checked document only after confirming that its tone is suitable for the recipient and that it makes no promise or claim you cannot support.
Prompt
Proofread the work document below using British English. Preserve my meaning, facts, names, figures, dates, technical terms and level of certainty. Do not invent information or rewrite it into a different style. Check spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, repetition, unclear wording and tone for the stated audience. Flag anything that may be factually inconsistent or ambiguous, but do not decide the correct fact. Return the result in three sections: 1) a clean revised version, 2) a table with the original wording, your suggested wording and the reason for each substantive change, and 3) a list of points I must confirm myself. Keep changes modest and professional. Document purpose: [purpose]. Intended reader: [reader]. Desired tone: [tone]. Words, phrases or formatting that must stay unchanged: [items, or 'none']. Document: [paste the document here]
Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.
Use a tool built for this
Second choiceHand it to a person
The distant thirdA person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.
What it gets wrong
- AI cannot know whether a sentence matches your organisation's internal terminology, politics or preferred style unless you provide that context.
- AI can change the strength or meaning of a statement while making the grammar look better.
- AI cannot confirm that names, figures, dates, policy references or commitments are correct from language alone.
- AI cannot judge whether a sensitive message will damage a workplace relationship or create an unwanted implication.
- AI does not provide a reliable tracked-changes workflow in every chat interface, so you may need to apply accepted edits yourself.
Even on a YES, the friction has a name: context depth and taste.
How we scored this
Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.
| Axis | Score (0–2) |
|---|---|
| Output | 2 |
| Inputs | 2 |
| Verification | 2 |
| Liability | 2 |
| Effort delta | 2 |
| Total | 10 / 10 |
The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.
FAQ
- Can AI proofread a Word document?
- Yes. Upload the document where the tool supports file uploads, or paste its text into a chat and ask for a clean version plus a list of changes. Check the returned wording against the original before replacing your file.
- Is it safe to use AI to proofread work documents?
- It is suitable for ordinary text if you remove confidential information that the tool does not need. Do not assume that a polished sentence is factually correct, and check your employer's policy before sharing internal material with an external service.
- Can AI check my work email before I send it?
- Yes. It can check grammar, clarity, politeness and tone, and can suggest a shorter version. You still need to confirm that the wording says exactly what you intend and does not make a commitment you cannot keep.
- Will AI change the meaning of my document?
- It can, particularly when you ask for a broad rewrite rather than proofreading. Tell it to preserve facts, certainty and meaning, then compare every substantive change with your original.
Nearby answers
Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.
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