Journalist files class-action lawsuit against Grammarly for using her name in an AI feature without consent

Journalist Julia Angwin has filed a class-action lawsuit against Superhuman Platform, Inc., Grammarly's parent company, accusing it of using her name in the AI feature Expert Review without her consent. The suit, titled Angwin v. Superhuman Platform, Inc., was filed on a Wednesday in March 2026; Wired reported it first, followed by The Verge.

What Angwin's claims are about

The suit alleges that Superhuman violated the "experts'" privacy and publicity rights by using another person's identity for commercial purposes without consent. According to The Verge, for several months Grammarly used the identities of real people, including staff of The Verge itself, in the Expert Review feature without asking permission. The suit is filed as a class action, which means Angwin is acting not only on her own behalf but on behalf of all the "experts" whose data was used the same way.

• Angwin v. Superhuman Platform, Inc. was filed by journalist Julia Angwin on a Wednesday in March 2026
• Grammarly used the identities of real people in the Expert Review feature for several months without consent
• Angwin learned her name was being used through journalist Casey Newton, also one of the "experts" whose identity The Verge found
• Wired reported on Grammarly's practice earlier, and The Verge was the first to uncover it

How Angwin found out her name was being used

Angwin said she learned what was happening from journalist Casey Newton, who also turned out to be among the "experts" whose names The Verge found in Grammarly's Expert Review feature. Newton wrote about the situation in his newsletter Platformer, and that, according to Angwin, is where she found out her own name was being used. Newton is not the only one: according to The Verge, it had earlier identified the use of the names of several of its own staff, including the editor-in-chief, in the same AI tool.

"Superhuman violated the 'experts'' privacy and publicity rights by using another person's identity for commercial purposes without consent," is how

The Verge characterizes the suit's claims.

Wired had previously written about Grammarly's practice, and The Verge was the first to reveal that other people's names and styles were being used in Expert Review without permission; staff of The Verge itself were among those affected. By the time the suit was filed, Superhuman had already drawn public criticism over the feature, but according to The Verge, it is Angwin's complaint that moves the dispute into the courts.

What this means

The suit moves the Grammarly scandal from the realm of reputation into the courts. If a court finds a violation of privacy and publicity rights, Angwin v. Superhuman Platform, Inc. could become a precedent for other AI services that use people's names and style without permission. For Superhuman, this means legal risks that go well beyond public criticism from The Verge and Wired: the company now has to answer specific claims in court.