Does a grammar checker count as AI assistance?
Most AI-assistance policies were written with a chatbot in mind, not a grammar checker — which leaves plenty of students guessing where a spell-checker or Grammarly actually falls.
The useful distinction
A tool that corrects what you already wrote — spelling, grammar, a suggested synonym — is editing. A tool that produces sentences you didn’t write from a prompt is generation. Most policies mean to ban or require disclosure of the second, not the first, but few say so explicitly.
Where it gets genuinely unclear
A more aggressive suggestion — “rephrase this sentence” — sits closer to the line than a red squiggly underline. If a tool rewrote a whole sentence for you and you accepted it without changing it further, that is arguably closer to generation than correction, whatever the tool is branded as.
What to do if the policy doesn’t say
Ask before you submit, not after a score comes back mixed. Naming the specific tool and what you used it for turns a vague worry into a concrete question your instructor can actually answer. It matches the same habit that helps with disclosure generally — see checking your own writing for the broader approach.
What it doesn’t change
Whatever the answer, keeping your draft history is still the strongest thing you can point to if a score comes back higher than expected. See why honest writing can still score high for more on what a detector actually measures.