5 powerful ways EAs are using AI today
Practical use cases + copy-paste prompts that will save you hours each week
500+ EAs joined live this week for my fast-paced session on top ways assistants are using AI right now.
ICYMI, here’s a recap of the 5 critical use cases I shared, along with high-quality prompts for each one. (Did you know I have a free prompting guide, including a library of 35+ prompts? Check it out.)
Before we dive in, remember: don’t outsource what you love. The best AI use cases for you are the tedious, time-consuming, soul-sapping tasks you dread. Not the stuff that brings you joy in your day-to-day.
1. Drafting meeting minutes
Taking minutes doesn’t have to be a slog. Record the meeting, generate a transcript, then feed it into your AI chatbot with the below prompt. In seconds, you’ll get a polished draft that’s easy to refine.
Prompt:
Imagine you're an extremely experienced and high performing executive assistant. You are specialized in processing and structuring meeting notes and transcripts. Use the attached transcript to create detailed minutes with clear headings for the name of the meeting, the date of the meeting, attendee list, time the meeting started, a summary of discussions and actions in the order they were discussed in the meeting using the format [Action: xyz], time the meetings was adjourned. Extract the main points and decisions and make them easy to act upon. At the end, include a bulleted list of all meeting actions summed up. Format the minutes in a professional, concise manner. Meeting minutes should avoid using bullet points, except when presenting list of attendees and list of actions. All other content should be presented in complete sentences written out normally. The minutes should always be under 1500 words long. Make the tone professional, friendly and approachable with an emphasis on simplicity and clarity. Use [British/American] English. If any details needed for the minutes aren't available, don't guess — use placeholders so the user can add these in manually.
🛠️ Tools: AI meeting notetaker or transcription tool (like Rev or MS Word Dictate), plus an AI chatbot
💡 Pro tip: Invest in a portable meeting speaker/recorder for face-to-face meetings.
2. Writing on behalf of your exec
Need to draft emails, LinkedIn posts, speeches.. or literally anything else to sound convincingly like your exec? Train your AI chatbot on samples of their past writing, and get it to create a tone of voice and style guide that you can reuse anytime. You’ll save time and keep their voice consistent.
Prompt:
Act as an experienced copywriting coach. Take the below samples of my [type of content] and analyse them. Create an extremely comprehensive tone of voice and style guide that describes my particular style of [type of content] writing. Include specifics like commonly used phrases and emojis, structure of the content, and any other details to describe the writing style with as much specificity as possible.
🛠️ Tools: AI chatbot
💡 Pro tip: To streamline this process, build an AI assistant (Custom GPT, Gemini Gem, Copilot Agent) pre-trained on your exec’s unique style.
3. Processing expenses
Hate doing expenses? You’re not alone. Snap a picture of your receipts and upload it to your AI. It will pull the data and format it into a spreadsheet — in seconds. You can even ask it to check for policy compliance.
Prompt:
Imagine you’re an extremely experienced bookkeeper. Use the attached photo of receipts to process this set of expenses. Present the expenses in a sheet format with columns for the following data points: date, vendor, category, amount. Category should be one of the following options: [insert list of categories from your expense template].
🛠️ Tools: Phone camera + AI chatbot
💡 Pro tip: Use your AI chatbot to check expenses against your expense policy to flag anything questionable.
4. Dealing with a**holes
We’ve all dealt with someone who’s hard to work with. Use AI as your personal coach. Give it context on the tricky stakeholder and ask for help drafting a calm, clear message that gets results, while keeping the peace.
Prompt:
Imagine you are a world-class executive coach and expert in emotionally intelligent workplace communication. You've spent decades coaching professionals on how to navigate tense dynamics with senior stakeholders at large companies. I'm an experienced executive assistant, and I'm preparing to communicate with a difficult executive — someone who is known to be [insert here, e.g. passive-aggressive, overly critical, generally hard to work with]. We've had repeated run-ins in the past. I need your help crafting a message that is calm but firm, tactful but clear, and most importantly, designed to speak to this person in a way that increases the likelihood they'll respond positively and give me what I need. Your task is to help me [draft an email / prepare talking points for a conversation / write a response / clarify my position] to achieve [goal]. Make sure the communication is professional and emotionally intelligent, framed to reduce defensiveness and increase cooperation, and tailored to the personality and communication style of a difficult person.
🛠️ Tools: AI chatbot
💡 Pro tip: Include your Myers-Briggs type and theirs (if you know it).
5. Career coaching, for free
Thinking about your next move? Use AI as a sounding board. Talk through your goals, get help writing development objectives for your performance review, or map out a plan to get that pay rise you’ve been dreaming of.
Prompt:
Imagine you’re an extremely experienced career coach. I’m your client. I’m an executive assistant supporting [executive’s title] in [industry]. I have [X] years of experience as an assistant, and I want to step into a [X] role within [X months/years]. Help me write development goals I can bring to my performance review next month with a focus on cutting-edge skills I should build to be a true right hand. Present these goals in a sheet format. Attached are my CV, my job description. my boss’ goals for this year and the company’s key strategy pillars. Ask me questions to clarify any details you need in order to provide a comprehensive development plan.
🛠️ Tools: AI chatbot with voice (ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot apps)
💡 Pro Tip: Revisit the same chat window to carry on the conversation without having to repeat yourself.
I’m busy dreaming up my next few free webinars. Hit reply if you have topic requests!
Enjoy your weekend,
Fiona