LEX review: The A.I. Writing Tool That Saved My Friendships
“The most personal is the most creative.”
This quote from Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar acceptance speech resonated with me deeply. It explains exactly why I resisted using A.I. for writing, for the longest time. I sure am not a great writer myself, but I do care about writing well.
I also care deeply about friendships. Trevor Noah once described friendships as “little piggy banks you’re putting money in and they’re putting money in yours, and every now and again you get to break them open and enjoy what’s inside.” My writing journey would soon put these friendship piggy banks through quite a stress test.
Let me tell you about this A.I. writing tool that not only helped me write better, but also saved some friendships along the way.
I never imagined myself writing much. I was the visual guy — pictures and videos were my thing. Writing? That wasn’t for me. But everything changed in 2018 when my wife gifted me a Kindle while we were living in Nigeria. With no bookstores around, I suddenly had a library in my hands.
Reading led to ideas. Ideas led to a desire to write my thoughts. But writing? That was my roadblock. It was never my strong suit.
To overcome it I leaned on to friends and family. I had some friends and family who were good at writing, each with their unique strengths. One friend was brilliant with marketing copy, another with business emails, and my brother and wife were my go-to for everything else.
All this help was actually showing me something else — how little I knew about writing. I started believing that maybe writing just wasn’t for me. Sometimes a simple email became a ‘group project’ and a blog post would require a ‘committee’ to get published. These generous friends were the offline version of Grammarly.
I did try Grammarly and Hemingway editor but for some reason I didn’t like them. They lacked the interactivity I had with my friends. And for some reason I believed that it isn’t a problem that technology can fix.
Talking about technology, I landed a job as a Product Manager at a tech startup. The pace was dizzying. Meetings everywhere, documentation needed constantly — and well it required a lot of writing.
This was early 2024, peak AI hype. Despite my skepticism, I had to try something for those meeting minutes. ChatGPT did well for basic documentation. But for personal writing? Epic fail.
And at this time I was imagining a A.I. tool that could be almost like my writing with friends. They feedback on what I’ve written — and not write for me. That’s what I wanted.
I heard of Lex through Jeremy Caplan and decided to try it. I instantly loved the clean and simple design of the app. The latest models for writing were always available within Lex. Well, I can not explain how good Lex is — after only trying the free plan for a week or two, I got myself the pro plan.
Here’s what makes Lex different: it’s not trying to be everything for everyone. It’s a writing tool. Period. The interface is clean, focused, distraction-free.
Now my process looks like this:
- First drafts are always mine (creativity is personal, remember?), I write them in NotePlan or Obsidian
- I import these thoughts/notes into Lex to polish them
- Lex also helps me repurpose my ideas for videos or blog posts
And the best part? Friends get to be friends again, not full-time editors. When I do ask for their help now, it’s for ideas and inspiration, not grammar fixes.
Lex has a lot more features than I’m aware of, but I write, rewrite, and rewrite again. That’s all I need.
The truth is, you still have to do the writing yourself. No AI can bring in your personal experiences or references — that’s all you. But tools like Lex can help polish your voice without trying to replace it. For someone who started as an AI skeptic, that’s the perfect balance.
