Technical editors — are you finding AI-generated tutorials harder to edit lately?

Mostafa Ibrahim — Sun, 27 Apr 2025 06:28:48 +0000

Hey everyone 👋

I’ve been doing technical editing for a little over two years now, mostly focusing on developer-focused tutorials — topics around software engineering, AI, and machine learning.

Lately though, I’ve noticed a shift:
Since AI tools like ChatGPT became more common, a lot of the drafts I receive feel... very similar.
Not bad exactly — just missing something critical.

Some patterns I keep running into:

Overly broad or generic introductions that don’t hook into a real problem
Shallow explanations that just skim the surface without truly teaching
Logical gaps — steps thrown together without clear progression
Missing screenshots, output examples, or working demos — sometimes just a block of code without context

Instead of fine-tuning good drafts, I’m spending a lot more time rebuilding structure, adding technical depth, and fact-checking explanations to make sure the tutorials are truly useful.

Curious to hear from others:

Are you running into similar issues when editing AI-generated drafts?
Which problems are costing you the most time to fix these days — depth, clarity, originality, flow?
Have you changed your editing process at all to adapt to the AI wave?

Thanks so much in advance for any thoughts or tips you’re willing to share! 💬

Forem: Mostafa Ibrahim

Technical editors — are you finding AI-generated tutorials harder to edit lately?