Use AI at work as a beginner, safely

What you'll need

• One free or company-approved assistant. If you have never used one, do ChatGPT for beginners or the 7-day start first
• A task from this week that is not confidential
• Your employer's AI rule, if one exists. If you cannot find it, that is a question for your manager, not for the chat

Step 1: Learn the five tasks worth doing first

Use these before you try anything clever. Each one already has a full guide:

1. Reply to a normal email. Reply to work emails.
2. Summarize a long report you are allowed to share. Summarize a long report.
3. Outline a presentation before you design slides. Build a PowerPoint outline.
4. Get a spreadsheet formula and test it. Excel formulas.
5. Turn meeting notes into actions. Meeting notes.

Pick one and run it today. Do not set up five tools.

Step 2: Ask what in your week is a good candidate

Here is my job, in my words: [two or three sentences].
Here is what I did yesterday: [a few bullets].

List 10 weekly tasks a writing assistant could speed up.
For each one, say what I would still need to check before I send or file it.
Mark any task where I would have to paste customer data, passwords, unreleased numbers, or health information. Those are "ask my employer first," not starter tasks.
Do not tell me to automate a task I did not describe.

Choose one item from its list that matches a task you already do. Ignore the rest.

Step 3: Write your personal do-not-paste list

Put this where you will see it. It is not a legal policy. It is a brake.

• Passwords, access codes, and full account numbers
• Customer or student personal data, including names plus contact details
• Unreleased financials, prices, or deals
• Health information
• Anything marked confidential, internal only, or under a contract you signed
• A coworker's performance review or private message

If a task needs that material, use the tool your employer approved, or do the task without AI.

Step 4: Send nothing the chat wrote until you check it

You are the person whose name is on the email. Read the draft, fix the facts, and delete filler. If you cannot explain the result without the chat open, you are not done.

Common mistakes

• Pasting a whole customer spreadsheet into a personal account "just this once."
• Assuming a free chat is private from your employer. Your employer may also have rules about what you paste elsewhere.
• Trusting a confident paragraph about a policy, a price, or a law. Check the source you already have.
• Skipping the employer's required tool because a different chat feels nicer.

Privacy: what not to paste

Work chat logs can be reviewed by the company that runs the tool, under that company's terms. They can also be something your employer can see if you are on a work account. Read the tool's privacy page before you rely on it, and follow your employer's rule when the two differ. The employer's rule is the one that can cost you the job.

Director check: look before you use it

• Is this task on the starter list or on your do-not-paste list? If you are unsure, do not paste it.
• Did you use the tool you are allowed to use? A personal account is not a workaround.
• Can you point to the sentence you changed? If the draft went out untouched, you did not direct it.
• Would you forward this chat to your manager? If not, the chat has something in it that should not be there.

One extra tip

When one starter task feels easy, try the matching full workflow instead of inventing a new prompt every morning. The Work hub is the list. A new habit of one checked task a day beats a complicated setup you abandon.