AI at work: writing, research, spreadsheets and meetings

Use an AI assistant for writing, research, spreadsheets, slides and meetings safely, and measure the hours it actually saves you.

You have seen the claims that AI saves hours a week. In practice, many people try it, get a bland email or a wrong formula, spend longer fixing it than doing it themselves, and drift back to old habits. Others save time and quietly paste client data into a personal account. This course works through the jobs that fill a typical office week, email, research, spreadsheets, slides, meetings and learning, and shows how to do each one properly: in your own voice, with sources you can check, inside your company's rules. You measure your time before and after, so you know what AI is actually saving you.

What you'll be able to do

• Audit your working week and pick the tasks where AI is most likely to save time
• Decide what you may paste into an assistant under your company's policy and the PDPA, and redact the rest
• Draft and edit emails and documents that sound like you, using a personal voice guide
• Produce a research brief in which every claim is traced to a source you have opened
• Write, explain and test spreadsheet formulas and run a basic data analysis with an assistant
• Turn rough notes into a slide deck with a clear storyline and speaker notes
• Turn a meeting transcript into a checked summary with owners and deadlines
• Measure time saved, including checking time, and report it in a form your manager can use

Syllabus

Module 1: Find the hours worth handing over

Audit how your week is actually spent, pick the tasks where AI is likely to pay back, and record a baseline so you can measure the difference later.

• 1.1 Start with your week, not with the tool
• 1.2 Which tasks pay back and which cost you time
• 1.3 Record a baseline before you change anything
• 1.4 Audit your working week

Module 2: Know what you can paste in and what you cannot

Understand where text goes when you paste it into an assistant, what counts as confidential or personal data, how your company's AI policy applies, and how to redact so you can still get help.

• 2.1 Where your text goes after you press enter
• 2.2 Confidential data, personal data and the PDPA
• 2.3 Read and apply your company's AI policy
• 2.4 Redact a real document so you can still get help

Module 3: Draft emails and documents that sound like you

Build a personal voice guide, draft from your own bullet points instead of from nothing, and use editing passes so what you send reads like you wrote it.

• 3.1 Build a voice guide from your own writing
• 3.2 Draft from your bullet points, not from a blank page
• 3.3 Use AI as an editor, not a ghostwriter
• 3.4 Draft a week of real correspondence

Module 4: Research with sources you can check

Use search-enabled assistants and research features to gather information fast, then verify every claim against sources you have opened yourself, with Singapore primary sources where they exist.

• 4.1 Search answers, research reports and plain recall
• 4.2 Trace every claim back to a source you opened
• 4.3 Use AI to read sources faster, not to replace them
• 4.4 Write a sourced one-page research brief

Module 5: Get spreadsheet work done faster and right

Use an assistant to write and explain formulas, clean messy data and run analysis, and test every result on a sample before trusting it.

• 5.1 Describe the result and get the formula
• 5.2 Understand and fix a formula someone else wrote
• 5.3 Clean and analyse data with an assistant
• 5.4 Rebuild a slow spreadsheet task

Module 6: Turn notes into slides people follow

Build the storyline before the slides, turn notes into slide text and speaker notes, and use AI design tools without letting them decide what the deck says.

• 6.1 Get the storyline right before any slides
• 6.2 Slide text and speaker notes from your notes
• 6.3 Design tools, charts and your company template
• 6.4 Build a deck from a page of notes

Module 7: Get decisions and actions out of every meeting

Record and transcribe meetings within the rules, turn transcripts into summaries with decisions, owners and deadlines, and check the summary before it goes out.

• 7.1 Record and transcribe with permission
• 7.2 From transcript to decisions, owners and deadlines
• 7.3 Check the summary before you send it
• 7.4 Run a meeting with AI notes from start to finish

Module 8: Learn a new topic with AI as your tutor

Use an assistant to explain, question and quiz you on an unfamiliar topic, plan your practice, and check what you learn against reliable sources.

• 8.1 Ask it to teach you, not just to tell you
• 8.2 Quiz yourself and space your practice
• 8.3 Check what you learned against a reliable source
• 8.4 Plan and start a two-week learning sprint

Module 9: Prove the time saved and make it stick

Compare your results with your baseline, count checking and fixing time honestly, report the outcome to your manager and keep the habits that worked.

• 9.1 Count the time honestly, including checking
• 9.2 Report results your manager can act on
• 9.3 Assemble your AI work kit

Frequently asked questions

How long does the course take?

About ten hours across nine modules, including the exercises. Because several exercises use real work over a week or two, most people finish in four to six weeks.

Can I take this if my company has not approved any AI tools?

Yes. Module 2 shows you how to find out what is allowed, and most exercises can use public or redacted material in a personal account. Do not put work data into a tool your company has not approved.

How is this different from Working with AI assistants?

Working with AI assistants: prompting that gets usable output teaches the general skill of briefing and checking an assistant. This course applies it to specific jobs and measures the result. If you are new to prompting, take that course first.

Does it cover automating tasks between apps?

No. This course is about work you do with an assistant. Connecting apps so tasks run on their own is taught in Automate your work with AI and no-code tools.

Do I need Excel or PowerPoint?

Any spreadsheet and presentation app works, including Google Sheets and Slides. The formula lessons note where Excel and Google Sheets differ.

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