Useful in the margin

Large models are impressive at a distance. Small models are useful in the margin, where a writer actually hesitates: a clumsy verb, a repeated noun, a sentence that does not know how it ends.

The useful assistant got cheaper, which means it can sit closer to the sentence. Distance was the old tax. A model you had to visit was a model you used for performances, not for drafts.

Beside the cursor

The change is placement. When the model is cheap enough to run beside the cursor, it stops being a destination and starts being a pencil.

You do not go somewhere to think. You stay in the paragraph. The suggestion arrives where the hesitation was, and it leaves when you keep typing.

Quiet until asked

The tools that respect that stay quiet until asked. A writing product should not compete with the sentence it is trying to help.

A margin note can be refused. A modal cannot. The models that belong in a writing tool know the difference, and they wait.