Which task should you start with?
Choose a frequent task whose result your team can assess well. AI is useful here for wording and structure: it arranges existing information into a recurring format. That does not give it knowledge of missing decisions, prices or delivery commitments. Use a tool approved by your organisation and fictional or approved data for the first trial.
Minutes: turn notes into decisions and action items
Provide your own meeting notes and your minutes template, if you have one. You can use this instruction directly: “Create outcome-focused minutes from the following notes. Separate decisions, action items and open questions. For each action, state the task, owner and deadline. Include only explicitly stated information. Write ‘open’ for missing owners or deadlines, and do not turn suggestions into decisions.”
Compare the draft with your notes: are the decisions and people correct? Has a preference become a firm commitment? The short example above shows why this distinction matters.
Email: a relevant reply rather than a generic template
Provide the customer enquiry and your confirmed facts. Instruction: “Draft a brief, friendly reply to this email. Answer each question using only the supplied information. Where details are missing, ask a specific follow-up question. Do not invent prices, dates or commitments. Output a subject line and reply text; list unresolved points separately for me.”
For example, a fictional enquiry asks about installation next week but gives no location. A suitable sentence would be: “Where would the installation take place? Once we have that detail, we will check the requested date.” Before sending, check the recipient, facts and commitments; internal notes do not belong in the message.
Quotation: combine approved components
Provide the enquiry, relevant service descriptions and applicable approved terms. Instruction: “Create a quotation draft from these documents. Match each requested service to the relevant approved description. Copy quantities, prices and terms without changes and identify their source in a separate internal list. Flag missing or conflicting information. Do not add services or terms of your own.”
A short internal output might read: “Delivery date: open — requested in the enquiry but not confirmed in the approved information.” The responsible person resolves these gaps and checks scope, quantities, prices, calculations and terms before approval. The internal source list is kept separate from the customer quotation.
Four more tasks that use a similar approach
- Visit report: structure your own voice notes, separating your observations from customer statements.
- Tender: capture required documents and deadlines with their source passages, then check completeness against the original.
- Work instruction: organise existing steps and have a subject specialist check their sequence and safety implications.
- Translation: translate correspondence into the target language and check meaning, terminology and tone.
Test drafts and decide separately about sending
Test one document format with several fictional or approved cases. Include a case with missing information. Record what must remain unchanged and compare the output with the original documents. Measure the full effort, including corrections and approval. If rework consumes the benefit, simplify the task or retain the existing process.
An AI output in a chat or working folder is initially a draft. An automated workflow also needs a connection to the mailbox or CRM, a defined trigger and a way to handle exceptions. Start with “save a draft for review”. Automatic sending is a separate decision: define which cases qualify and which missing or conflicting details trigger human review. Prices, deadlines and contractual terms still follow the intended approval process.
Task, output and essential review
Scroll the table sideways if needed.
| Task | Useful output | Check before use |
|---|---|---|
| Meeting notes | Decisions, actions and open questions | Who actually decided what? |
| Customer email | Reply draft and missing details | Recipient, facts and commitments |
| Quotation | Draft from approved components | Quantities, prices and scope |
| Tender | Requirements with source passages | Completeness and applicable deadlines |
| Translation | Correspondence in the target language | Meaning, terminology and tone |