Short answer
AI helps most at work with email drafts, meeting notes, summaries of long documents, translation, spreadsheet formulas and data cleanup, and slide outlines. The method is the same each time: paste in the material and say who reads the result, what it is for, and what format you want. Before you paste anything from your company, check your company's AI policy. Treat the result as a draft, and verify numbers and facts yourself.
Check first: can company material go in?
This is the most important step. Some companies ban AI tools, allow only approved ones, or block customer data and internal documents. Ask your IT or security team, or your manager, whether a policy exists.
- Do not enter customer names or contact details, ID numbers, contracts, unreleased financials, source code or HR information unless your policy clearly allows it.
- If you must use something sensitive, mask it first. Replace "Jordan Lee" with "Manager A" and "$1.2 million" with "$X".
- A personal account and a company-provided account can have different data terms. Check in settings whether your chats can be used for training.
- Some employers want you to disclose when AI wrote a draft. Follow the rules where you work.
What to hand to AI, by task
Email
- What to ask the AI
- Write a draft, change the tone, draft a reply
- What you check yourself
- Names, dates, commitments
Meeting notes
- What to ask the AI
- Turn rough notes into agenda, decisions, to-dos
- What you check yourself
- Owners and deadlines
Spreadsheets
- What to ask the AI
- Write formulas, suggest ways to clean messy data
- What you check yourself
- Spot-check results by hand
Reports
- What to ask the AI
- Summarize long text, build an outline, polish sentences
- What you check yourself
- Numbers and sources
Translation
- What to ask the AI
- Emails, notices, general documents
- What you check yourself
- Technical terms; get a professional to review contracts and legal text
Slides
- What to ask the AI
- Outline the deck, write a one-page summary
- What you check yourself
- Real data and figures
Email and meeting notes
Paste in an email you received and ask for a reply, or write down what you want to say roughly and have it polished.
Below is an email from a client asking to move our meeting. We can do Thursday but not Friday. Write a polite 5-sentence reply that declines Friday and offers Thursday afternoon instead. Do not write a subject line. [Paste the email here]
Turning meeting notes into action items
Below are my notes from today's meeting. Organize them into (1) topics discussed, (2) decisions made, and (3) a table of action items with owner and deadline. If a note has no owner or deadline, write "TBD". Do not add anything that is not in the notes. [Paste the notes here]
Features that transcribe a recording differ by service and plan. For internal meetings, check your policy first.
Spreadsheets and reports
AI is most useful when you cannot remember a function. Describe how your sheet is laid out and it will write the formula. After you paste the formula in, check a few rows by hand.
- For a long report, set the shape of the summary: "5 key points, a list of figures, and decisions that are needed".
- Compare numbers in the summary with the original. AI sometimes slips in a figure that is not in the source.
- For a hands-on walkthrough of cleaning up messy data, see the Excel cleanup recipe. To turn spending data into a dashboard, see the spending dashboard recipe.
Column A has dates, column B has employee names, and column C has amounts. I want a monthly total for each employee on a separate sheet. Give me the formulas to use in Excel and the steps, one by one.
Translation and slides
For slides, let the AI draft the outline and do the design yourself or in a separate design tool. Always put your real data into the final slides.
Translate the email below into Spanish in a professional business tone. After the translation, list any sentences whose meaning is unclear so I can check them. [Email text]
Recipes on this site
If a task repeats, it helps to follow a set sequence. These recipes walk through two common office jobs step by step.
Related terms
- Draft
- A starting text that you edit, not a finished version to send as is.
- Masking
- Replacing sensitive details like names and amounts with placeholders before you paste text in.
FAQ
How do I know whether my company allows AI?
Check your internal security policy or announcements. If there is none, ask your manager or security team. If it is unclear, leave sensitive material out.
Can I submit AI-written text as is?
I would not. Check the facts and numbers and put it in your own voice. You are responsible for what you submit.
Is the free version enough for work?
For light tasks like email and summaries, often yes. Long documents or heavy use can run into limits.
Can I upload a meeting recording?
Participant consent and company policy come first. Some meetings should not go to an outside service, so check before you use one.
Keep going
Checked against sources on 2026-10-30. Sources: Anthropic, Best practices for prompt engineering, Google, Gemini API prompting strategies. How we write