AI isn’t a secret weapon anymore. It is top of mind for crafting better docs.
For technical writing if done right, it’s your ticket to better docs and happier developers.
Here’s the deal: The likes of Stripe and Docker have raised the standards of exceptional docs. The bar to convince your users to try your product is high. Clean API references, copy-pastable code examples, sharp release notes, and search that actually works is how you get them.
At DemoDrive, we have spent hours analyzing docs and blogs, talking to technical writers.
We distill our findings here.
LLMs are not yet good at everything. Use them for the wrong tasks, and you’re just wasting time.
1. Authoring: From Blank Pages to Polished Docs
Writer's block is frustrating, but AI helps overcome it.
- Draft Smarter: Dump product specs, PR descriptions, or design docs into AI. Get a structured draft in minutes. LLMs know Markdown like the back of their hand.
- Glossary Magic: Every product has jargon. AI creates and explains terms like a pro, saving you from context overload. It’ll help you start a glossary—but you’ll need to fine-tune for granularity.
- Template Generation: Reusable templates streamline your work. AI can generate templates for how-to guides or troubleshooting docs, ensuring consistency and efficiency.
- Generating Release Notes: Summarize commits, pull requests, and changelogs into clear internal or external release notes without spending hours poring over changes.
And yes, your headings? AI can clean those up too—SEO-approved and developer-friendly.
2. API Docs: Make Devs Love Your API
Docs aren’t just specs anymore. They’re how devs learn to your API.
- Real Examples, Fast: Show devs what your API returns—AI crafts realistic, useful samples of requests and responses.
- The ‘Why’ and ‘When’: AI writes use cases that answer the questions developers actually ask.
- (Futuristic) Onboarding Made Easy: AI can help create personalized quick-start guides and tutorials dynamically, tailored to user needs. Whether it’s a new dev or a seasoned engineer, AI can adapt the docs for their journey to accelerate the learning curve.
3. Quality Control: No More Broken Docs
Bad docs hurt your reputation. Good docs build trust.
- Content Consistency: Establish machine-friendly rules for tasks, like clear steps or required prerequisites, to maintain a uniform structure.
- Spot Duplicates: Eliminate redundant pages. Clean docs = happy devs.
- Version Control: Compare versions and catch bugs. No more outdated docs haunting your users.
- Automated Bug Detection in Examples: Run code snippets to identify errors or inefficiencies before they reach your audience.
- Link Validation: Detect broken links and invalid references, enhancing usability and ensuring all content connects seamlessly.
Ever seen a tutorial referencing a feature that doesn’t exist? AI won’t let that happen.
4. Search: Find or Fail
No one uses navigation, search is the gateway to your docs.
- Simulate Searches: AI generates search queries based on your docs content and audits the results to find weak spots in your documentation.
- Optimize Metadata: AI tweaks link text and tags for discoverability, helping devs (and Google) find what matters. This metadata also helps LLMs understand your docs.
- Organizing by Topic: AI sorts documentation into clear categories like troubleshooting, installation, or quick-start guides. This makes content easier to navigate for LLMs.
- Personalized recommendations: Leverage analytics to identify frequently accessed topics and dynamically recommend similar pages or sections of the docs for the user.
5. Automation: Glue It All Together Content Summarization
Great docs shouldn’t slow you down. AI makes them part of your flow.
- Build-Time Checks: Add AI quality gates to your CI/CD pipeline. Ship better docs every time.
- Content Summarization: AI turns scattered, unstructured data into concise, structured documentation ready for deployment.
- Automated Style and Structure Audits: Review content for adherence to predefined templates and style guidelines to maintain consistency across your docs.
Tools Are Only as Good as Their Use
Think of AI as a powerful search engine at your fingertips. The right query makes your job faster and easier—but only if you know how to ask it. Like crafting a Google search that gets you exactly what you need, following clear guidelines with AI yields the best results.
Using the wrong approach? That’s how you end up wasting time and losing trust in your AI companion. The key is aligning AI to the task at hand—and letting it amplify your work, not replace it.
Why This Matters to You
Your docs are your product’s handshake with the world. Polished, accurate docs build trust and drive adoption. Messy ones? They’re silent deal-breakers especially for product-led-growth companies.
AI doesn’t replace DevRel or writers. It’s your co-pilot. It frees you to do what you’re best at: connecting with devs and telling great stories.
So, what are you waiting for? Add AI to your toolbox. Your future self (and your users) will thank you.