The Advantages and Limitations of AI-Powered Writing Assistants:Recent Insights and Future Directions

In this digital age, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies play a significant role in English as aforeign language (EFL) teaching and learning. One area that has received increasing attention is AI-poweredwriting assistants, in which AI-based tools are developed to assist EFL learners in improving their Englishwriting output. This paper provides an overview of the advantages, and limitations of AI technologies applied tosome popular writing assistants for English writing purposes. The overview indicates that there is still a criticalgap between what AI educational technologies could do and how they are implemented in the EFL context.Therefore, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborative research is essential to overcome the limitationsof current AI-powered writing assistants. This overview would serve as a good reference for guiding technologyexperts to develop more sophisticated intelligent writing assistants that adapt to EFL learners’ diverse needs andpreferences. The paper also provides rich discussions on future research directions from multiple perspectives