AI can help when you have several ways to complete a workplace task and are unsure which to choose. It can organise the options, point out missing information and help you plan a next step.
It does not know your workplace as well as you do. A neat comparison can still be based on wrong assumptions or incomplete facts. In this final lesson, you will use AI to make a small decision clearer while keeping the decision itself in human hands.
State the decision
Suppose your team needs to share a weekly project update. You are considering an email, a short meeting or a shared document.
Begin with a clear request:
Help me compare three ways to share a weekly project update: email, a 15 minute meeting and a shared document. The team has eight people working different hours. Compare the time involved, how easy it is to ask questions and whether people can find the information later.
This gives AI the options and the criteria that matter. Review its comparison to see whether it has assumed something you did not tell it.
Choose the criteria yourself
AI can suggest factors to consider, but you should decide which ones matter most. For this team, different working hours may make a shared document more practical than a meeting. Another team may need a discussion because its decisions are complex.
You can ask:
What important criterion might I have missed?
Consider the suggestions, then remove anything irrelevant. A longer comparison is not necessarily a better one. The aim is to focus on the factors that could change your choice.
Look for missing information
A comparison may reveal a question you cannot answer yet. Perhaps you do not know whether everyone can access the shared document or whether a weekly meeting already exists.
Ask AI to separate what you know from what you need to find out:
Based only on the facts I have given you, list the strongest option and the information that could change that conclusion.
Treat its answer as a provisional view. Check the missing facts with the relevant people or systems before making a commitment.
Challenge the preferred option
Once you have a likely choice, ask what could go wrong:
If we use a shared document, what practical problems should we anticipate and how could we address them?
It might suggest that updates go unread or that nobody knows when to add their section. You can then decide whether to set a deadline, assign an owner or add a short notification.
This step helps you improve an option rather than simply asking AI to declare a winner.
Turn the decision into a small action
After you or your team decide, AI can help outline the first few steps:
We have chosen a shared weekly update. Suggest three steps for trying it for two weeks, including how to collect feedback.
Review the plan and assign responsibilities yourself. If the trial does not work, you can change the approach. A short, reversible test is often more useful than debating a simple process indefinitely.
Know when to involve other people
Some decisions affect colleagues, customers, budgets or workplace rules. AI cannot provide their agreement or take responsibility for the outcome.
Use it to prepare a clear comparison or identify questions for the right people. Check important facts and follow your organisation’s approval process where one applies.
Try it yourself
Choose a small, low-risk work decision. Give AI two or three options, the constraints and the factors that matter most.
Ask for a short comparison and one question that remains unanswered. Check that question yourself, then write your preferred next step in your own words. Notice whether AI helped you see the decision more clearly.
Key takeaway
You have completed Use AI at Work Today: Real Tasks You Can Do in Minutes. You have practised giving AI a clear work task, improving writing, checking research, prioritising a busy day, developing an idea and comparing options.
Choose one task from this course to try in your normal work. Start small, check the result and keep the parts that genuinely help. AI Tuition Hub has further courses if you want to explore how these skills apply to your role or industry.