AI assistants for email

01Sound familiar?

• ✓Re-reading the same unanswered emails every morning
• ✓Important threads buried under newsletters and CCs
• ✓Replies that take 90 seconds of typing but wait three days
• ✓Follow-ups that depend on you remembering to check

02What an assistant does here

1. 01 Triage on arrival

   Sorts incoming mail into needs reply, needs action, waiting on someone, and low-priority categories so the inbox reads as a work queue.

2. 02 Drafts where replies are due

   Prepares responses for routine confirmations, scheduling and standard questions. You review and send until a narrower lane has earned a different approval rule.

3. 03 Tracks the open loops

   Knows which sent emails await replies and nudges the right person — or you — when the wait exceeds your rules.

4. 04 Summarises the long threads

   Twelve-message thread, three stakeholders, one decision buried in message eight: summarised with the decision and open questions on top.

02AA concrete view

03Limits and conditions

• ▪Start read-only: triage and drafts need no send permission, which keeps the first rollout low-risk.
• ▪The assistant reads selected mail to help with it. The scope should name where that data is processed, retained, and whether any supplier may use it for model improvement.
• ▪Sending should stay behind approval until its judgment has a track record; auto-send is earned, not default.

04Packages for this job

05Go deeper

• Is it safe to connect an AI assistant to your email and business systems? · 7 min
• What can an AI assistant actually do? · 6 min