AI for Writing & Office Work

Office work is full of writing: emails, minutes, reports, notices, presentations and spreadsheet formulas. Generative AI can cut the time for a first draft from twenty minutes to two. Used carelessly, it also produces bland, wordy text with mistakes your name is attached to.

In this lesson you will learn reliable prompts for the most common office tasks, how to keep your own voice, and how to check formulas and facts before anything leaves your desk.

Emails and messages

Email prompts work best when they include the recipient, the purpose, the key facts and the tone. A small Python helper can produce consistent prompts for the emails you write every week:

TONES = {
    "formal": "formal and respectful, suitable for a senior official",
    "friendly": "warm and friendly but professional",
    "firm": "polite but firm, making the deadline clear",
}

def email_prompt(to, purpose, facts, tone, max_words=120):
    fact_lines = "\n".join(f"- {fact}" for fact in facts)
    return (f"Write an email to {to}.\nPurpose: {purpose}\nFacts to include:\n{fact_lines}\n"
            f"Tone: {TONES[tone]}.\nLength: under {max_words} words. "
            "Include a clear subject line. Do not add facts that are not listed.")

print(email_prompt(
    to="Mr. Verma, accounts head of our client in Lucknow",
    purpose="remind him about an unpaid invoice",
    facts=["Invoice INV-2291 for ₹48,600 was due on 31 October",
           "We sent a reminder on 5 November",
           "Payment can be made by NEFT to the account on the invoice"],
    tone="firm",
))

Write an email to Mr. Verma, accounts head of our client in Lucknow.
Purpose: remind him about an unpaid invoice
Facts to include:
- Invoice INV-2291 for ₹48,600 was due on 31 October
- We sent a reminder on 5 November
- Payment can be made by NEFT to the account on the invoice
Tone: polite but firm, making the deadline clear.
Length: under 120 words. Include a clear subject line. Do not add facts that are not listed.

The line "Do not add facts that are not listed" is important. Without it, a model may add a friendly but false detail, such as a late fee that your company never mentioned.

Summaries of documents and meetings

Summaries save the most time, but they can also drop the one detail that matters. Tell the model who the summary is for and what they need:

Summarise the attached 6-page circular for school parents.
Give 5 bullet points covering: what changes, from which date, what parents
must do, any fees, and the contact person. If a point is not mentioned,
write "not mentioned". Quote dates and amounts exactly as written.

For meeting notes, ask for a fixed structure: decisions, action items (owner, task, deadline) and open questions. Many tools can transcribe and summarise online meetings automatically, for example Copilot in Microsoft Teams for licensed users. Always tell participants when a meeting is being recorded or transcribed, and check the action items before you send them: names and deadlines are where transcripts most often go wrong.

Reports and presentations

For longer documents, use the chain you learned in Step-by-step Prompting & Reasoning: outline first, then sections, then review. For a presentation, ask for a slide plan before any slide text:

I am presenting our branch's quarterly results to regional managers for
10 minutes. Suggest a plan of 8 slides: for each slide give a title,
3 bullet points of at most 8 words, and one suggested chart or image.
Data: sales ₹1.84 crore (up 12%), returns down from 4.1% to 2.9%,
2 new corporate clients, staff shortage in the warehouse.

Tools such as Copilot in PowerPoint can create slides directly from a plan like this. Your job is still to check every number and make sure the story is honest.

Spreadsheet formulas

AI is very good at writing Excel and Google Sheets formulas from a plain description. Describe your columns precisely:

My Excel sheet has city names in column B, order dates in column C and
order values in column D, from row 2 to row 500. Write a formula for the
total order value from Pune since 1 October 2026, and explain each part.

A typical correct answer looks like this:

=SUMIFS(D2:D500, B2:B500, "Pune", C2:C500, ">="&DATE(2026,10,1))

Never trust a formula only because it returns a number. Test it on a few rows where you know the answer: filter the sheet by hand for Pune and October, add the values with the status bar, and compare. Watch for common problems: wrong ranges, text that looks like a date, extra spaces in "Pune ", and functions your version of Excel does not have.

Keeping your own voice

AI drafts tend to sound the same: long, polite and generic. To make them sound like you:

• Paste two or three of your own past emails and say "match this style".
• Ask for "plain, direct sentences, no filler phrases".
• Cut the first and last sentences of the draft; they are often padding.
• Read it aloud. If you would never say it, change it.

A quick script can flag the most common filler before you send:

FILLER = ["i hope this email finds you well", "please do not hesitate",
          "at your earliest convenience", "i am writing to inform you"]

draft = """I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to inform you that the
training on 12 December is moved to 19 December. Please do not hesitate to
contact me if you have any questions."""

text = " ".join(draft.lower().split())
found = [phrase for phrase in FILLER if phrase in text]
print(f"{len(draft.split())} words, filler phrases: {found}")

36 words, filler phrases: ['i hope this email finds you well', 'please do not hesitate', 'i am writing to inform you']

Common mistakes

• Sending without reading. You are responsible for every word, number and name in the email.
• Pasting confidential documents into unapproved tools. Use your organisation's approved AI tool for internal files.
• Letting AI invent details. Tell it to use only the facts you supply.
• Trusting formulas untested. Check them on rows where you already know the answer.

Key points

• Give email prompts the recipient, purpose, facts, tone and length, and forbid extra facts.
• For summaries, name the reader and the details they need, and ask for dates and amounts to be quoted exactly.
• Build reports and presentations in stages: plan, draft, review.
• AI writes good spreadsheet formulas, but test them on known rows before trusting them.
• Keep your own voice by giving examples of your writing and cutting filler.

TONES = {
    "formal": "formal and respectful, suitable for a senior official",
    "friendly": "warm and friendly but professional",
    "firm": "polite but firm, making the deadline clear",
    "apologetic": "sincerely apologetic, calm and solution-focused, without over-explaining",
}

def email_prompt(to, purpose, facts, tone, max_words=120):
    fact_lines = "\n".join(f"- {fact}" for fact in facts)
    return (f"Write an email to {to}.\nPurpose: {purpose}\nFacts to include:\n{fact_lines}\n"
            f"Tone: {TONES[tone]}.\nLength: under {max_words} words. "
            "Include a clear subject line. Do not add facts that are not listed.")

print(email_prompt(
    to="Ms. Meera Nair, a customer in Kochi",
    purpose="apologise for a delay in her laptop repair",
    facts=["The repair will take 3 extra days",
           "A replacement part is arriving from Chennai",
           "We will give a 10% discount on the repair bill"],
    tone="apologetic",
    max_words=100,
))

Write an email to Ms. Meera Nair, a customer in Kochi.
Purpose: apologise for a delay in her laptop repair
Facts to include:
- The repair will take 3 extra days
- A replacement part is arriving from Chennai
- We will give a 10% discount on the repair bill
Tone: sincerely apologetic, calm and solution-focused, without over-explaining.
Length: under 100 words. Include a clear subject line. Do not add facts that are not listed.