If you were one of the hundreds of editors in Atlanta, Georgia, April 23-25, you probably also felt the collective exhale. The relief of being in a space where you don’t have to explain why you care so deeply about a comma or an em dash or a split infinitive. The ACES: The Society for Editing conference has a way of reminding you exactly why you do this work.
This year, a record number of Dragonfly team members were there. We sponsored, we exhibited, we attended sessions, we presented our own sessions, and we connected with the community we love.
The question in every hallway
If there was a theme running through the unofficial spaces of ACES 2026 — the hallways between sessions, the tables at dinner, the bar (ahem) — it was AI. And not in the bright-eyed, breathless way you might hear it discussed in a tech conference keynote. The feeling among editors was something more complicated: trepidation, skepticism, a kind of wary determination.
Editors know better than most what’s at stake when language goes unchecked. They’ve spent careers catching what slips through. And now they’re being asked to process a world where text can be generated faster than it can be evaluated. The unease was palpable, and, honestly, understandable.
Which made Friday night’s banquet keynote feel especially well timed.
“You are the last line of defense.”
The keynote speaker at the Friday night awards banquet was media executive Hollis R. Towns, and he did not come to comfort us with platitudes. He came to remind us of our power.
Hollis spoke at length about what AI can do, what it’s currently doing, and what it cannot replace. In a room full of people who likely spend their days quietly worrying about the future of their profession, his message cut through the noise.
“The ground shifts; great editors do not,” Hollis said. “We edit in service of the reader.” With more than 30 years of experience in strategic leadership, content innovation, and operational oversight, Hollis has watched the industry weather seismic changes before. However, through all changes, human judgment is still at the center of good editorial work.
“We can’t afford to publish a story that a machine checked, but was never checked by a human for accuracy,” he said. “You are the people who fight for clarity in a world that profits off of confusion.”
Our media landscape is currently shaped by speed over substance, so Hollis asked attendees not to ignore AI. His recommendations included:
- Become the expert in the room about what AI cannot do.
- Reframe your value proposition: Editors protect credibility and preserve trust.
- Find your allies. Build coalitions and show up in rooms where decisions are made.
- Mentor the next generation.
Clarity, ego, and the work in between
I spoke on Saturday morning to a room of nearly 250 editors about AI “tells,” from structural tendencies to the peculiar quirks that make AI-generated prose feel just slightly off. I showed how to spot these “tells” and — more importantly — how to take the content from verbose to concise, robotic to human, and passive to active.
But as I told attendees in the ballroom, if I were to give this same presentation next year, nearly all of the specific tells I showed would be different. The tools evolve, and the patterns shift. What reads as “AI-generated” today will be harder to detect tomorrow.
And that’s exactly the point.
Whether it’s an AI tool or a writer who simply hasn’t found their footing yet, the true tell will always look like too much repetition, a lack of clarity, and ideas that circle without landing. The surface-level patterns will keep changing, but the fundamentals of clear communication won’t. Human editors aren’t valuable because they can identify today’s AI quirks; they’re valuable because they understand what makes writing work, regardless of who (or what) produced it.
Later that afternoon, Dragonfly Senior Editor Kaylin Brian took the stage for her session, “Your Style Guide Isn’t a Moral Code: Editing Without the Ego,” and if the reaction during and afterward was any indication, it hit a nerve in the best possible way.
Kaylin’s session tackled something every editor has felt but rarely says out loud: the way our professional identity can get tangled up in our preferences. She drew a clear distinction between editorial preference — the habits, training, and pet peeves we carry into every document — and professional responsibility, which is ultimately about serving the client, the reader, and the work. Her framework for “choosing your hills” gave attendees a practical set of questions to ask before making a change: Is this actually wrong, or just not my preference? Does it affect clarity, meaning, or accuracy? Am I serving the reader, or just soothing my own discomfort?
Kaylin argued that consistency beats perfection, and that flexibility isn’t a compromise of your standards. It is the standard. It was a gracious, grounded session delivered by someone who clearly practices what she preaches.
Gasps, guardrails, and good advice
No ACES conference would be complete without the AP Stylebook keynote, which, as always, delivered its share of surprises. The biggest moment was the announcement that “healthcare” would officially become one word.
Gasps. Actual gasps.
Many editors have been pushing for this for years, arguing the logic and making the case. And now, at last, here we are. Healthcare. One word. Consider this your permission slip.
Dragonflies attended many other outstanding sessions. Holly Baker, assistant professor of editing and publishing at BYU, taught us how to deal with difficult clients, using personas like Entitled Emily (a client who notoriously scope creeps) and Nervous Nelly (a client who needs constant attention and reassurance). Our main takeaway from Holly was that clear and consistent boundaries from the start of a project reduce uncomfortable and cumbersome conversations later on.
Scientific and Medical Editor Ellen Kuwana discussed environmental impacts of AI to a standing-room-only crowd in her session, “An Existential Lens on GenAI: Environmental Concerns and Ethical Considerations.” In “Boosting Your Editing Efficiency (Without Using Generative AI),” Crystal Yang, editor and owner of Rabbit with a Red Pen, shared the many tools available to editors that can help us work more efficiently and accurately without sacrificing quality, such as Word functions, macros, and text expanders.
All in all, the entire program was stacked with practical takeaways for editors in just about every realm and skill set imaginable, from working with horror and romance content to editing crisis communications.
Community, as always
One of the things that makes ACES unlike any other professional conference that I’ve attended is how much life happens outside the scheduled programming. This year, editors organized their own meetups, such as trips to the Georgia Aquarium, bookstore crawls, group lunches, brewery tours, and more. The conference doesn’t end when the breakout rooms close — it spills out into the city and conversations over food. It’s a kind of connection that’s hard to manufacture and impossible to replicate.
And then there’s the Spelling Bee. This year’s competition went on longer than any in recent memory, round after round, with the crowd in it until the very end. Word has it the event raised a record amount for the ACES Education Fund, which is a reminder that this community invests in the next generation of editors as much as we invest in ourselves.
Beyond the sessions and the keynotes, ACES is what it’s always been: a gathering of people who genuinely love this craft and genuinely love each other. The conversations over coffee, the annual Pun Slam hosted by Dragonfly Deputy Editorial Manager Dave Nelsen, the introductions made at the booth, and the EdiBuddies hashtag making its annual rounds on social media are what keep us coming back.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth, attended a session, or just said hello in a hallway. We love this community, and we’re already looking forward to what comes next.
In the meantime, we’ll keep doing what we do: holding the line and caring about the words. As Hollis put it, “The machine is fast, the machine is consistent, the machine doesn’t get tired. But the machine does not care. You do.” And after spending three days with all of you in Atlanta, I know for a fact that he’s not wrong.
