This talk was presented at the AI The Docs 2025 online conference. We are thrilled to share the recording and the summary with you.
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Summary
How can a small technical writing team manage an overwhelming workload of documentation, PRs, and tickets without sacrificing quality and efficiency?
In his presentation, Gareth Brinn (Senior Technical Writer at Gravitee) shares how Gravitee’s documentation team leveraged AI to enhance processes and tools rather than replace human writers.
The challenge:
- 2 writers covering 6 feature teams and 1 support team,
- 2,695 content pages, 300 PRs per quarter,
- 30+ Jira tickets.
- Quality dropped as speed increased.
- Business impact: frustrated users, poor UX, even lost sales.
- Root problems: scattered information across systems and the “blank page” barrier.
The AI-powered solution: Automating release notes. Chosen as the test case because they were repetitive, formulaic, and time-intensive.
Implementation steps:
- Template creation: Community-standard release notes template provided AI with a strict structure.
- Automated collateral gathering: AI built queries and filters to pull tickets and PRs from Jira/GitHub.
- Prompt engineering: LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) refined using past release notes as benchmarks.
- Workflow automation: Scripts + N8n reduced the process from 8 hours of collective work to “one click.”
Outcome:
- AI delivered a strong first draft, requiring only ~1 hour of human review.
- Technical writers are freed to focus on new features and higher-quality content.
- Release notes improved in consistency and clarity.
Key insights: AI is a force multiplier not a replacement. It provides reliable baselines, removes drudgery, and enables writers to shift from quantity to quality while maintaining the human review needed for accuracy.
With thoughtful implementation, even small, overstretched documentation teams can use AI to scale capacity, improve standards, and reclaim focus—turning technical writers into organizational “superheroes.”
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