Overview
How might we design magic edit so people can trust and act on AI output?
When to use
- Perfect for writing tools, content editors, and document applications where inline text transformation improves the editing workflow.
When to skip
- Blank documents where there is no selection to transform.
- Structured fields where freeform rewrite would break validation.
- Codebases that need diff review more than inline magic (use smart diff).
Rules
Replacing selection with no undo or version.
Actions that rewrite far beyond the selection without warning.
Menus with a dozen vague verbs and no preview.
Running edits on the whole doc when only a sentence was selected.
Evidence
| Product | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Notion | AI rewrite and improve actions on selected blocks. |
| Google Docs | Help me write and refine on selected text. |
| Microsoft Word | Copilot rewrite controls on highlighted passages. |
| Grammarly | Inline rewrite suggestions for selected sentences. |