Generative AI at Work: Save Hours Every Week

Use a chat assistant to write, summarise, research, plan and work in spreadsheets faster, while checking its work and keeping your organisation's data safe.

Beginner · AI for Business · about 9 hours · 4 modules · certificate on completion

Taught by Marisèl Rodriguèz, Aynurè Abdullayevà, AI Learning Companions.

About this course

A chat assistant can take hours of routine work off your week, but only if you know how to ask, what to check and what never to paste in. This course shows you, task by task. You'll learn how chat assistants work and why they sometimes make things up, write prompts that get a useful answer first time, and keep personal and confidential data safe. Then you'll put the assistant to work: drafting and editing emails and documents in your own voice, summarising long documents and researching topics with every claim checked, writing and testing spreadsheet formulas, turning meetings into action lists and planning your week. Every module has a hands-on lab with sample material, and you'll finish by building your own prompt library and measuring the time it saves you.

What you'll learn

  • Write clear prompts that give a chat assistant the context, task, audience and format it needs
  • Draft, edit and adapt emails and documents with AI while keeping the facts and your own voice
  • Summarise documents and research topics with AI, and check its claims against sources
  • Get, understand and test spreadsheet formulas with an assistant's help
  • Build a personal prompt library that saves measurable time, within your organisation's privacy rules

Skills you'll gain

Prompt writing, Writing and editing with AI, Summarising documents, Fact-checking AI output, Spreadsheet formulas, Meeting notes and planning, Prompt libraries, Safe use of AI at work

Tools

Claude or another chat assistant, Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice Calc

Before you start

None: you only need to be comfortable with email, documents and a little spreadsheet work. You need access to a chat assistant such as Claude (a free plan is enough for the labs) and a spreadsheet program. If your organisation has an AI policy or a list of approved tools, have it to hand.

Modules

  1. Getting good answers, safely

    How chat assistants work and why they get things wrong, the parts of a prompt that matter, and the privacy rules to follow before you paste anything in.

    • How chat assistants work, and where they go wrong (10 min)
    • Prompts that work (12 min)
    • What's safe to share: privacy and company policies (12 min)
    • Hands-on lab: Before and after: improve a prompt

  2. Writing and editing

    Draft emails and documents from your facts, edit for tone and plain language, adapt one message for several audiences, and check every draft before it goes out.

    • Drafting emails and documents (12 min)
    • Editing, tone and plain language (12 min)
    • Checking what it wrote, and owning it (10 min)
    • Hands-on lab: Rewrite a messy announcement for two audiences

  3. Research and summarising, with checking

    Summarise long documents for a purpose, research unfamiliar topics, and check claims against sources, so you can rely on what you pass on.

    • Summarising long documents (12 min)
    • Researching with an assistant (12 min)
    • Checking claims before you rely on them (10 min)
    • Hands-on lab: Summarise and fact-check a policy

  4. Spreadsheets, meetings and your prompt library

    Get and test spreadsheet formulas, turn meetings into action lists and plans, and save the prompts that work as templates you can reuse.

    • Spreadsheet formulas and data with AI (12 min)
    • Meetings and planning (12 min)
    • Building a personal prompt library (10 min)
    • Hands-on lab: Get the formulas right with an assistant

Project: Save an hour a week: your AI workflow

Choose three tasks from your own work that you do at least once a week, such as writing updates, summarising documents, preparing or following up meetings, or working in spreadsheets. For each, design a workflow with a chat assistant: a tested prompt template, the checks the output always needs, and the data that must never go into it. Time each task with and without the assistant over at least two rounds, including the time spent checking, and collect your templates in a prompt library you could share with a colleague. Use only material you're allowed to share: replace names and confidential details with placeholders, and follow your organisation's AI policy, or the rules from this course if it has none.

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