Quick check
Guess first, no penalty. Your boss is back from a two-day offsite to 120 unread emails. Which job do you hand to AI first?
An assistant's day is full of jobs that repeat: sorting email, writing recaps, scheduling, booking travel, preparing briefings. Those are where AI saves the most time, because the work is text and you can check it.
The AI may already be in your tools. Microsoft's help pages show how to summarize an email thread with Copilot in Outlook, and Gmail Help says Gemini in Gmail can "synthesize long email threads into concise bullet points". Use the ones your employer approves.
A worked example
A prompt is the message you type to the AI. This one sorts the inbox and leaves every decision to you:
Here are today's unread emails for my manager. Outside people's
names are removed.
Sort them into three groups: needs her reply today, I can answer it,
and for information only. Give one line per email.
Don't guess at deadlines: if an email has no date, write [no date].
Don't draft any replies yet.Your turn
Fill the gaps
Fill each gap in the same prompt.
Inbox prompt
Sort them into . If an email has no date, .
Try it
Your steps, about 2 minutes
- 1.Start your assistant AI kit, a note you keep. Save the prompt above, then run it on today's inbox in a tool your employer approved, with outside names removed. You now have a sorted inbox.2 min