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Whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3 is set to revolutionize or threaten the virtual assistant industry is a topic of debate. It’s not just VAs who are concerned but also professionals from other industries, including software engineering and copywriters.
Will ChatGPT change how virtual executive assistants work? And will AI replace assistants? It’s a big and relevant question. We dug into the topic and discuss it with our expert EA team.
Read on to find out what our take is.
What Are the Main Tasks of an Executive Assistant?
EAs usually handle scheduling, email management, creation of workflows and research. They serve as a gatekeeper to prevent executives like you from being bogged down with menial tasks. The role of an EA is to free up your time from administrative duties so that you can focus on what really moves the needle for your company.
Yes, ChatGPT can help streamline many of the tasks that an executive usually delegates to assistants. However, it takes skill and creativity to use AI well.
How Virtual Assistants Can Use ChatGPT
Understanding how ChatGPT changes how virtual assistants work is key for both VAs and executives. It will clarify the core value of remote executive assistants’ role and expertise, help them streamline tasks and pick up more complex ones.
Scheduling
Virtual assistants can integrate AI with calendar software to make it faster to add events, reschedule meetings and cancel events. They can ask the AI to create a schedule based on a list of tasks that need to be completed that day. If a certain task was scheduled at a time that’s not optimal, they can easily adjust it by asking the AI to prioritize that task or schedule it for a specific time.
Email Management
Executive assistants can use ChatGPT to draft emails, subject lines and outreach communication and revise them as necessary to match your voice. They also have the ability to use the AI to assist in sorting through emails faster and helping you hit Inbox Zero.
Travel Planning
ChatGPT can research travel options and sort through flights and accommodations. Another way that EAs may make their travel planning responsibilities easier is asking the AI for suggested itineraries. This combined with their own brainstorming creates a better travel plan.
Note-Taking
When attending meetings, executive assistant can take automatic transcripts and run them through ChatGPT to rewrite, adjust and get rid of filler words. Upon prompting, the AI can summarize key points as well.
Data Entry
EAs may speed up data entry by using ChatGPT. One of the tasks that it can handle is inputting contact information into a CRM system and turn data into tables.
Research
ChatGPT is not only able to list types of venues in a city but can refine your search based on details that are important to you. One of our executive assistants asked the AI to “find a vegan-friendly restaurant in Amsterdam that is woman-owned.” This was a very specific request that the bot was able to handle. They were even able to expand the search by 10 km to find additional options that were just outside of the city.
Other topics that EAs can research faster with ChatGPT include:
• Business partners
• Market trends
• Itineraries
• Gift ideas
Drafting Documents
In addition to email drafts, ChatGPT can provide report and presentation drafts. It goes without saying that EAs will need to proofread and revise the documents as necessary. For long reports, we don’t recommend let AI do all the work: ChatGPT can take over 20 minutes to draft a 2,500-word report and you can often find mistakes and unclear information in there.
How ChatGPT generates presentation drafts is by receiving the right type of prompt. So, make sure to ask the AI to create a certain number of slides and be clear and detailed on the topic of the presentation. From there, assistants can revise and fill out the missing information, giving it a human touch.
Virtual assistants can also ask the AI to create email and report templates or contract drafts. And if you need to create company policies, an EA powered by ChatGPT can help.
It takes knowledge of how to phrase prompts and quickly adjust the templates that ChatGPT generates to optimize the use of this technology. That’s why we’re spending time learning how to maximize the power of this tech and use it as efficiently as possible so that our members don’t have to.
Answering FAQs
Executive assistants can train ChatGPT to answer FAQs, which saves them time on responding to questions that you receive through email. The AI is trained to understand what humans mean when they ask questions and to give natural, conversational responses. If you prefer a more professional voice for your business, EAs can even instruct the AI to answer in a formal tone. For assistants who don’t yet know what the FAQs in your business are, they can use ChatGPT to predict what those questions may be.
Want to get some inspiration? We tested and identified the best 10 ChatGPT prompts for Executive Assistants.
Can ChatGPT ever Replace Executive Assistants?
The short answer is no.
We think that ChatGPT-3 isn’t necessarily a threat to EAs. In fact, it can become an “assistant” for assistants and help them get more done, if you know how to use it well and critically.
In this industry, it’s the human touch and personalized approach that makes the difference between average and great EAs. Think about it: the most important skills for an executive assistant are relationship building, strategy, organizational skills, creativity and the ability to double check for accuracy.
So, we are not concerned about being replaced. As a forward-thinking company, we have already begun to learn how to use this new technology to improve the quality and efficiency of our work rather than being scared of it.
The limits of ChatGPT
People keep talking about the limitations of ChatGPT and Microsoft’s new Bing AI.
For once, it has limited information on events and the world after 2021. You could miss key information by only ever relying on this AI. That’s why having a human to fill in the gaps that ChatGPT can’t is invaluable.
Because the AI pulls information from the Internet, it may sometimes deliver inaccurate facts. A real human should confirm and cross-compare that gathered research is true. Another risk is AI bias and that it might give harmful instructions.
In conclusion: how ChatGPT and AI can empower Executive Assistants
At Headroom we believe that ChatGPT will change how virtual Executive assistants work, for the better. AI can improve EAs’ efficiency and empower them to take on more meaningful work on behalf of their executives. This is a competitive field, so those who don’t adopt new technology will find themselves left behind. Executives will begin expecting more out of their assistants, making the use of the AI essential.
And we can’t deny that ChatGPT is an excellent tool for executive assistants because it assists in completing many of their daily, repetitive tasks – especially when it comes to research, drafts and copywriting.
It can’t, however, do everything for them. EAs still need to go through training and develop organizational and time management skills. While the benefits of using an executive assistant are the same, probably even better now that they can take on bigger responsibilities.
Our team of virtual executive assistants are already using ChatGPT to carry out research and brainstorm as efficiently as possible. Because we strive to be the best, we stay up-to-date with the latest technology that’s relevant to serving executives. We are constantly asking ourselves how we can boost productivity of our team and our members.
If you’re ready to onboard our executive assistant team, all you need to do is sign up for an account and make time for a deep dive call to explain what you expect.
