Grammarly created an AI version of PC Gamer Senior Editor Wes Fenlon's writing voice and style, trained on his published work, without ever asking his permission. The company packaged it as an "AI Expert" profile that other users could interact with. Fenlon discovered it himself.
The irony hit quick. Shortly after, a separate AI company reached out to Fenlon and formally asked if they could build an AI expert based on his work - offering $2,000 for the rights. One company cloned him in secret. Another at least had the decency to ask.
Grammarly has since disabled the feature. But a screenshot Fenlon shared revealed how poorly the clone actually captured his voice - the AI version used phrases like "empowers gamers," the kind of corporate filler that any editor worth their keyboard would delete on sight.
The Consent Gap in Writing Tools
This isn't a hypothetical ethics debate. Grammarly sits on millions of users' documents. The company's privacy policy gives it broad latitude to use content for product improvement, but building a named AI persona based on a specific writer's publicly available work is a different kind of thing entirely. It's not training data averaged into a model. It's identity.
The $2,000 offer from the second company is almost more interesting than the violation itself. It establishes a going rate - or at least an opening bid - for what AI companies think a writer's voice is worth as raw material. Two thousand dollars for an asset that could theoretically replace the need to hire that writer.
What This Means for Grammarly Users
Grammarly has 30 million daily active users. Many are writers, marketers, and content creators who paste their best work into the tool every day. The voice profile feature was built on the premise that Grammarly can analyze writing style and replicate it - that's literally the product pitch for their tone and style features.
The line between "help me write in my voice" and "let other people use my voice" turns out to be thin. Grammarly walked across it without checking whether anyone was watching.
For now, the feature is off. But the capability clearly exists, and the business incentive to ship it is obvious. If you're a heavy Grammarly user, it's worth reading the privacy policy you agreed to - specifically the sections on how your content gets used for AI training. The answer might change how much original work you're comfortable running through the tool.