Catch up on a long thread
Twenty replies become five lines: what was asked, what was agreed, what is still open.
AI for business · Part 3 of 7
AI for email and enquiries: reply faster, still sound like you
Email is where most small businesses lose their mornings. Here is a four-step method that cuts the typing and keeps the judgement with you.
Where AI helps with email
Four jobs it does well.
Draft the reply
You give the facts as bullet points. It writes the sentences. You edit and send.
Fix the tone
Turn an irritated draft into a calm one, or a rambling one into three clear paragraphs.
Translate
Read an enquiry in another language and reply in it. Ask a fluent speaker to check anything important.
Reusable replies
Build a small library of answers to the ten questions you get every week.
What it should not do
Send anything by itself, quote prices you have not confirmed, or reply to complaints without you reading every word.
The tools
Inside your inbox, or alongside it.
Links go to each provider. Features vary by plan and are added often.
GmailGemini in Gmail“Help me write” drafts and refines emails, and long threads can be summarised. Availability depends on your Google plan and settings.workspace.google.com/products/gmail ↗OutlookCopilot in OutlookDrafts replies and summarises threads inside Outlook. What you get depends on your Microsoft 365 licence.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/copilot ↗Any inboxChatGPTPaste the thread, ask for a summary and a draft, copy it back.chatgpt.com ↗Any inboxClaudeGood at keeping your tone when you give it an example of how you write.claude.ai ↗PolishGrammarlyChecks spelling, grammar and tone as you type, in the browser and in email.grammarly.com ↗TranslationDeepLTranslates emails and documents between languages.deepl.com ↗
Built-in assistants are quicker because they already see the email. A separate assistant works with any email provider and gives you more control over the brief. Plenty of people use both: the built-in one for summaries, the separate one for replies that need care.
The method
Summarise, decide, draft, check.
The decision stays with you. The typing does not.
Summarise
“Summarise this thread. What do they want from me, and by when?”
Decide
You decide the answer. Write it as three or four bullet points with the real facts.
Draft
“Write the reply from these points, in my tone, under 120 words.” Paste an old email of yours as the example.
Check and send
Names, dates, prices, promises. Read it once aloud. Then you press send, not the assistant.
Try it
Tone is a setting, not a rewrite.
Same facts, three tones
A customer asks whether you can cater a lunch for 40 people next Friday. You can. Pick a tone to see how the reply changes.
Before you send any AI draft
0 of 5 checked
Enquiries
Reply faster without sounding automated.
Speed wins enquiries. Someone who asks three companies for a quote often goes with the one that answers first and answers properly. AI helps you do both, as long as the reply is still clearly yours.
Give it your voice
Paste two or three emails you were happy with and say: “This is how I write. Match it.” Do this once in a saved project or custom assistant and every later draft starts closer to finished. The prompt guide shows how to save instructions like this.
Build a reply library
List the ten questions you answer every week: prices, availability, areas covered, lead times, how to book. Ask the assistant to draft a good answer for each, edit them, and keep them in a document. Next time, paste the enquiry and the matching answer and ask it to personalise the reply.
Take care with customer details
An enquiry contains personal data: a name, an email address, sometimes a phone number or home address. Use an assistant your business has approved, or remove those details before pasting. The built-in assistants in Gmail and Outlook work on your mailbox under your existing account terms, which is one reason to prefer them for this job.
Complaints are different
Let AI help you understand a complaint and calm your own draft. Do not let it write the apology from scratch. People can tell, and a complaint is the moment they most want a person.
Keep going
More in this series.
Part 4 of 7Meeting notesRecord, summarise and follow up on meetings, and what to tell people before you press record.Part 5 of 7Marketing contentPlan a week of posts, write captions and make images and short videos for your business.Part 6 of 7Research and documentsGet answers with sources, question long documents and tidy spreadsheets, then check the result.
All seven guides: AI for business, the full series.
FAQ
Questions we get asked.
Short answers, in plain English.
Can customers tell an email was written by AI?
Often, if you send the first draft unedited. Generic openings and over-polished phrases give it away. Supplying your own facts and an example of your writing fixes most of it.
Do I have to tell customers I used AI to draft an email?
If you read, edit and send the email yourself, it is your email and you are responsible for it. Fully automated replies are different: be clear when someone is not talking to a person.
Is it safe to paste customer emails into an AI assistant?
Only into a tool your business has approved. Customer emails contain personal data. Use a business plan with data protection terms, or remove names and contact details first.
Can AI send emails for me automatically?
It can, through automation tools, but start with drafts that you approve. See part 7 of this series before letting anything send by itself.
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