Editrix, a new AI-powered editorial platform, aims to democratize access to professional book editing services while training the next generation of editors. Founded by Meru Gokhale, the former publisher of the Penguin Press Group at Penguin Random House India, Editrix aims to preserve authors' voices while providing professional-level, automated feedback, including developmental editing, structural editing, and inline editing capabilities for fiction and nonfiction manuscripts.

"I realized that the problem with AI is that it works differently depending on how you ask it," Gokhale said. "Most people, when they're faced with a blank text box, sort of freeze up. They just don't know what to ask it."

Gokhale developed Editrix.ai to bridge this gap, drawing on her two decades of editorial experience at PRHIndia, where she worked with authors including Siddhartha Mukherjee, Arundhati Roy, and Salman Rushdie. The platform features a pre-built prompt library that enables users to access different types of editorial feedback with a single click.

"At the back end of all of that, I've already done the thinking, the prompting, the testing, the evaluation," Gokhale said.

Users can upload manuscripts in either PDF or .doc format to Editrix.ai and select from a number of editing assistance tools, intended to help with such tasks as structural editing and drafting pitch letters. The platform provides both self-service subscriptions and assisted editing packages with human support.

"During the pandemic, something happened which has gone completely unnoticed in publishing worldwide," Gokhale said. "There are no courses for editing: you can't really wake up one day and say I want to learn how to be an editor. It's an apprenticeship. And now the senior editors and the junior editors don't sit next to each other anymore, so there is no way to learn."

While Editrix currently focuses on English-language manuscripts, testing is ongoing for additional languages. Gokhale envisions particular potential for the tool to help non-native English speakers access professional editorial services.

"Writers all around the world, not just for fiction but really for non-iction, are doing amazing, original research—amazing work," she noted. "The reality is that a lot of their work doesn't get taken seriously because they don't always write in perfect English."

As AI capabilities evolve rapidly, Gokhale personally tests new developments to keep the platform current. "I have a deep understanding of AI, but I also have a deep understanding of editing," she said. "It's like bringing those two things together."

Gokhale also plans to launch editor training courses in 2025, in order to help publishing professionals better integrate AI tools into their workflow. "I predict that in a few years, when you have more AI-written and human-written [content], the demand for people who do only grammatical and style editing will fall," she said, "and the demand for people who will do developmental editing will rise."