What Happens while your Article is Being Written

A progress screen works through reading your brief, researching, fact checking, filling content gaps, placing visuals, and SEO tuning, then writes section by section. You can close the tab without cancelling it.

Last updated 1 day ago

After you select Generate, you are taken to a progress screen. This explains what each stage is doing and what you can safely do while you wait.

The Stages, in Write Article

Stage	What it is doing
Reading your brief	Topic, keyword, outline, and content goals
Researching sources	Competitor pages and reference material
Checking facts	Grounding claims in credible sources
Matching length targets	Hitting your article length and structure
Filling content gaps	Going beyond what competitors already cover
Weaving in proof	Stats, quotes, and supporting detail
Placing visuals	Cover and in-article images, when enabled
Tuning for SEO	Keywords, headings, and readability

The Stages, in Quick Draft

Quick Draft runs a shorter sequence, because it is resolving decisions you did not make yourself:

Reading your brand profile, analyzing competitor articles, researching your topic, applying brand voice, writing your article, tuning for SEO, and placing visuals.

Then it Writes Section by Section

Once research is done, the article is written a section at a time. You will see which section it is on, such as "Section 3 of 8", along with the heading it is currently writing.

The indicator distinguishes between thinking and writing. Thinking means it is working out what the section should say before producing text, which is normal and not a stall.

Then it Prepares Media

After the text is complete, images and video are fetched and placed. You will see a preparing media stage.

This runs after the writing rather than during it, so an article can look finished a moment before its images appear.

How Long it Takes

Research and setup take roughly two minutes. Writing depends on length: a Short article is quicker than a Pillar one. Media preparation adds up to a minute or so when images are enabled.

Expect a few minutes overall. An In-depth article with AI images takes longer than a Short article with stock photos.

You Can Leave

Closing the tab does not cancel generation. It continues on our side, and the finished article appears in Documents.

You can navigate away, work on something else, or close your laptop. Come back to Documents and open the article when it is done.

Credits during Generation

The credit cost is held when generation starts, not spent. If generation fails, the held credits return to your balance. You are not charged for an article that did not arrive.

You will see the held amount next to your balance in the top bar while it runs.

When it Finishes

The page becomes the writing workspace with your draft in it. From there you can edit, run optimization tools, adjust SEO metadata, and publish.

If it Stops or Fails

Generation can fail. When it does, your credits are returned and the document remains in Documents so you do not lose the setup.

The most common causes are a research source being unreachable and a temporary provider problem. Retrying usually works.

If an article sits without progressing for a long time, or fails repeatedly, there is a dedicated troubleshooting article for it.