Introduction

This article may contain affiliate links. It is documentation-based research, not a live API test, a trial, or a review. It uses only the official Writesonic documentation page for Ask AI and the vendor’s public homepage as sources, and separates what those pages state from our own suggested working habits. The reader question is narrow: after you select a passage in the AI Document Editor and open Ask AI, how do you choose between the edit-or-review actions and the generate-from-selection actions, and what should you do with the generated block afterward?

The documentation describes Ask AI as a feature inside the AI Document Editor. You activate it by highlighting text or pressing the space bar to reveal the formatting bar, then clicking Ask AI (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). That same page lists two distinct option groups for a selection, plus a separate set of actions for handling whatever the tool generates. Our contribution is an operational way to choose between those groups, plus a reusable note format for recording each decision.

Documented Workflow

The documentation organizes Ask AI into steps. Step 1 covers reaching the AI Document Editor, either with a blank document or by opening an existing one through a project folder or History (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). Step 2 covers opening the Ask AI menu: select the text to display the formatting bar and click Ask AI, or press the space bar if you have no draft yet. Step 3 covers the actual request, and Step 4 covers what you do with the generated content.

Inside Step 3, the page separates three paths. You can type your own instruction on the message bar and click Send. You can choose from an edit-or-review selection list: Improve SEO, Rephrase text, Improve writing, Make longer, Improve spelling or grammar, Make shorter, Change tone, and Simplify. Or you can choose from a generate-from-selection list: Translate, Summarize, Find action items, and Explain this (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). The page also describes a create-content path when you are brainstorming without a draft, using a dropdown of content types plus a follow-up prompt.

Step 4 is the part readers often skim. After reviewing the generated content, the documentation says you can give further instructions or choose from dropdown options: insert the generated content into the editor, ask it to continue writing, make the generated content longer, or try again or discard (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). The vendor homepage frames the broader product around tracking, prioritizing, acting, and proving results in AI search (https://writesonic.com/), but that marketing framing is not a measured fact about Ask AI behavior and does not change the editor mechanics above.

Our suggested process, which is not part of the vendor contract, is to sort the two lists by intent before clicking anything. Ask one question of the selected passage: do I want this same passage changed, or do I want a new artifact derived from it? If the passage should stay the unit of work, the edit-or-review list is the matching family. If a new block should exist alongside or instead of the passage, the generate-from-selection list is the matching family. This one question prevents the most common mismatch, which is using a generative option for a trimming job.

Practical Walkthrough

Here is our suggested order of operations, distinct from the documented API contract. The documentation tells you which controls exist; the sequence below is editorial advice for using them deliberately.

Select the passage so the formatting bar appears, then open Ask AI as the documentation describes (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). If the document is still blank, press the space bar instead.
Write one sentence in your own words describing the intended outcome before touching the menu, for example “same sentence, fewer words” or “a separate short summary above this section.”
Decide which family fits that sentence. If the outcome changes the existing passage, choose from the edit-or-review list. If the outcome produces a new artifact, choose from the generate-from-selection list.
Pick the single closest option rather than stacking several. The documentation lists the options but does not describe how they combine, so treating each as one deliberate step keeps cause and effect visible.
Read the generation box before acting. The documentation says the generated content appears there for review (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai).
Resolve the result with one of the documented actions: insert, continue writing, make longer, or try again or discard (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). Leaving a generation box unresolved is the failure mode this step exists to prevent.
Record the decision in the reusable note described below.

A hypothetical worked example makes the family choice concrete. Suppose an editor selects a dense pricing paragraph and wants it shorter. The correct family is edit-or-review, and Make shorter is the matching option, because it acts on the existing passage. Choosing Summarize instead would sit in the generate-from-selection family and produce a new condensed block rather than trimming the original sentence. Both might look acceptable in the generation box, but only one matches the stated intent of shortening the passage in place. This example is hypothetical; it is not a documented test result.

The reusable output is an Ask AI action note. For each request, record four fields: the selected passage, identified by a short locator such as the first few words or its heading; the action chosen; the family it came from; and the outcome, one of inserted, extended, retried, or discarded. Keeping the family in the note matters because a later reader can see whether the passage was meant to change or whether a new artifact was meant to appear. A simple table with those four columns is enough. The note is our suggestion, not a documented feature, and it does not require any tool beyond the editor you already have.

Completion Checks

Use these observable checks after each Ask AI request. They are our editorial checks, not vendor guarantees.

The generation box shows content that matches the action you chose; a Make shorter result should read as a trimmed version of the selection, not a new summary block.
The result has been resolved through one of the documented actions, meaning inserted, extended, retried, or discarded, rather than left sitting unresolved in the box (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai).
The action note has all four fields filled in, including the family the action came from.
If the result was inserted, the surrounding text still reads as one coherent passage rather than two competing versions of the same idea.
If the result was discarded or retried, the note says so, so a later reader does not assume the passage was changed.

Limits

The documentation page does not state how many generations you get, how long results take, or how the tool decides between the two option lists when a passage could plausibly fit either one (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). It also does not describe how the options behave when combined, so our one-step-at-a-time advice is a working habit rather than a documented rule. The homepage’s visibility and citation figures are marketing material, not measured facts about Ask AI (https://writesonic.com/), and we do not treat them as evidence of output quality.

Because this is documentation-based research and not a live API test, we cannot say how any action behaves on your specific text, how consistent results are across attempts, or whether a given option will suit a given passage. The absence of a detection signal in this research says nothing about authorship of any text; we make no authenticity verdicts. We also do not infer integrations, automatic publishing, security controls, or performance characteristics that the pages do not describe. The hypothetical pricing example illustrates a decision pattern only; it is not a test result, and another editor’s passage may call for a different option.

Final Verdict

Ask AI’s documented mechanics are simple enough to summarize: select text or press the space bar, open the menu, choose a typed instruction or one of the listed options, review the generation box, then resolve it with a documented action (https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai). The practical difficulty is not the interface but the family choice, and the two lists map cleanly onto two intents: change the passage, or derive something new from it. Deciding that intent before opening the menu, then recording the action and outcome in a short note, turns an open-ended menu into a repeatable habit. Treat the vendor pages as the contract for what exists, treat this workflow as our suggestion for how to use it, and verify anything beyond the documented steps in your own editor.

Official Sources

Writesonic Ask AI documentation: https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/ask-ai
Writesonic homepage: https://writesonic.com/