As AI technologies rise to exceed our expectations, companies might consider their efficiency as sufficient to replace jobs across the board. Nonetheless, the work that an Executive Assistant is doing can go above and beyond their toolkit, if performing to high standards. Aligned with a proactive approach, their abilities can also exceed expectations and help build relationships with colleagues and coworkers across the company.

Instead of reacting with distrust towards emerging AI technologies, Executive Assistants should be embracing its efficiency and manage it as a tool for productivity enhancement.

A third of the companies in Y Combinator’s 2023 cohort are building in AI. The accelerator has backed startups that are using chatGPT to provide services such as Writer a copy assistant, or Yuma, an integration of help desk software automating draft responses, or Lang for speeding customer service conversations. Deekard offers an AI-powered tool to analyze data.

Executive Assistants are also reaping the benefits of ChatGPT. Far from being a nuisance in their job descriptions, it can actually improve an EA’s performance and contribute to overall productivity.

Are you in favor of AI or EAs?

In this post, you’ll understand the ways that an Executive Assistant benefits from using ChatGPT as part of their tool inventory. It’s not really about deciding between one or the other: ChatGPT or an Executive Assistant, but rather how an EA can use it for your team’s benefit. Read on.

Table of Contents:

• How are Executive Assistants using ChatGPT?
• An experiment: We gave the same assignment to ChatGPT and an Executive Assistant to see how they perform
• Is ChatGPT replacing Executive Assistants?
• Embracing ChatGPT in Executive Assistant work

How are Executive Assistants using ChatGPT?

Executive Assistants all over the world are now discovering the wonders of ChatGPT. With this innovative tool, they are able to enhance their skills and capabilities when performing tasks. ChatGPT can save a lot of time, reduce workload, and increase efficiency.

It can also help them in asking smart questions, providing support for presentations, delivering content, drafting emails, adjust tone and style in writing, simplifying complex steps, proofreading and summarizing, and even providing pre-meeting briefings in just a matter of seconds.

By using ChatGPT, Executive Assistants are able to perform their duties with much more ease and confidence, allowing them to take on more responsibilities and even explore new opportunities in their career. Truly, ChatGPT is a game-changer in the world of Executive Assistance.

EAs are understanding the advantages of AI and chatbots to perform in fast-paced, high-performing business environments. EAs are able to integrate technologies into their daily tasks for the automation of repetitive tasks and other benefits. As the use of AI and chatbots continues to evolve and expand, EAs will play an increasingly important role in driving innovation and efficiency across their organizations.

An experiment: We gave the same assignment to ChatGPT and an Executive Assistant to see how they perform

To understand more about how Executive Assistants and chatbots can work together (and apart) I gave the same prompt to an EA, ChatGPT, and Bing chat, to plan a 3-day business trip to Guatemala City. Fairness intended, the Executive Assistant is not from the said city and has never been, so she is unfamiliar with it.

My hypothesis was to prove that chatbots are still in the early stages to replace a human altogether, without dismissing that its “brain” has information about everything on the internet, as is the case of Bing chat. These are tools that teams should understand and use skillfully.

The same prompt was given to all three: Could you please plan and send me, a business trip to Guatemala City for 3 days with a hotel stay, a place to work every day, places to eat, and 1 additional day for tourist sightseeing recommendations?

(Politeness was intended for humans but was left to maintain prompt consistency).

These are the main differences that I noticed in my experiment: (FYI, this table was created using AI overstating how useful the tools actually are.)

This experiment showed how far one prompt can go in the chatbot vs executive assistant comparison. In time-sensitive business situations, writing carefully constructed prompts can be time-consuming and are best delegated to a skillful assistant who would use the platform and deliver carefully curated spreadsheets. This is also true for data verification.

While conducting this research, I stumbled into another area that I hadn’t considered beyond this experiment: follow-ups and reminders. Unless the prompt is given and appropriate setups have been made across platforms, chatbots are unable to do so, just like with their reservation capacity.

In all, the executive assistant probably used chatbots for researching venues, redacting careful prompts, verifying data, uploading to crafted spreadsheets, and following up on the assignment. This leads to understanding, that ultimately, the best solution would be to combine the two: have your assistant use ChatGPT to save them the research effort upfront.

Is ChatGPT replacing Executive Assistants?

It depends on the quality of the work that an EA is doing, but if your EA is exceeding expectations and performing well, it would definitely represent a downgrade.

To draw light on the topic, an Executive Assistant shouldn’t be confused with an Admin Assistant whose tasks might require more simple inquiries. An EA with a high level of EQ who really understands your schedule is also able to prioritize, organize your inbox to reach zero unread emails, give meeting support, and improve the workflow and output on operational and reporting tasks, besides travel planning and expense tracking and reporting.

Low-quality work is easily replaceable throughout the board, apart from any tech tools that may be available. Strong Executive Assistants have a variety of abilities to perform over expectations ranging from emotional intelligence adding up to technical knowledge that will pave the way to productivity. As an example, an EA can use high prioritization skills to organize your email and your calendar with only the most important content and meetings, moving whatever needs/can be moved.

A highly qualified Executive Assistant has soft skills that allow for communicating with people across the team, clients, and partners, prioritizing, and problem-solving. This individual uses AI and Chatbots to their advantage to add more value to your organization.

Embracing ChatGPT in Executive Assistant work

ChatGPT, Bing chat, and other AI software tech are on the rise offering more solutions as time and tech itself progresses. This is great news for everyone looking to upgrade their productivity, Executive Assistants included.

At Viva, we’re embracing artificial intelligence as a tool that simplifies tasks for teams. Our approach is an optimistic and pragmatic one: we use the options that work best for our 10x productivity solution, instead of a fearful and defeatist attitude toward new technologies.

Book a time with us to learn more about how we integrate artificial intelligence, chatbots, and executive assistant support to help improve your productivity.