Where AI already lives in your tools

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Lesson 1 · 6 min

Where AI already lives in your tools

By the end

A short list of the AI features your plan already includes, and one you’ve used on a real email.

  1. 1Learn
  2. 2Try it
  3. 3Human check
  4. 4Quick check

Learn · 3 min

It’s probably already there

Over the past few years, the big office suites have built AI into the tools you open every day. It usually arrives in an update, often behind a sparkle or star icon, a help-me-write button or an “ask” box in a side panel.

Built-in AI has one real advantage over a separate chat tab: it can see what you have open. It can read the thread you’re replying to or the document you’re in, so you skip the copy and paste.

Where to look

Names and menus change often, but the jobs are much the same from tool to tool:

  • Email (Gmail or Outlook): a help-me-write or draft option when you reply, summaries of long threads, suggested short replies
  • Documents (Google Docs or Word): a draft from a prompt, a selected paragraph rewritten or shortened, a summary of a long document, answers to questions about it
  • Spreadsheets (Google Sheets or Excel): a formula written from a plain-English description, a messy column cleaned up or sorted into categories, a chart or summary table from a question
  • Meetings (Meet, Teams or Zoom): transcripts, summaries and suggested action items, which lesson 2 puts to work
  • Your other software: CRMs (customer databases), help desks, accounting and website tools often have an assistant too

Built in, or a separate tab?

Use the built-in feature for quick jobs on what’s already open: this reply, this thread, this formula. Use a separate assistant like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini when you need to give it more background, combine several sources or work through something over a few rounds.

Either way, the human check is the same. A draft written inside your inbox is still a draft.

Check what your plan includes

What you get depends on your plan. Some features come with standard business plans, some are paid add-ons, and an admin can switch some of them off. Check your account’s admin or billing pages, or ask whoever manages your accounts, for three things: which AI features are on, whether any cost extra, and what the plan’s terms say about your data.

Many business plans have stricter data terms than free consumer tools, but check yours rather than assume.

Try it on your business

3 min

Spend three minutes finding the AI in your email and using it on one real reply. If your plan doesn’t include it, run the same prompt in a free assistant.

  1. 1

    Open a real message you need to answer. In the reply window, look for a sparkle icon, a help-me-write option or an AI side panel.

  2. 2

    Fill in the prompt and paste it into the built-in box. No AI option? Your plan may not include it, so use a free assistant and paste their message in too, leaving out anything private.

  3. 3

    Read the draft against the human check, then edit it or discard it.

  4. 4

    Use any time left to look for the same icon in a document and a spreadsheet. Note what you found, and what to ask whoever manages your accounts.

Draft a reply to this message from [WHO IT’S FROM].
[IF YOU’RE IN A SEPARATE CHAT, PASTE THEIR MESSAGE HERE]
My answer: [YOUR ANSWER IN A FEW WORDS].
Keep it under [NUMBER] words, friendly and plain.
Don’t add any dates, prices or promises I haven’t given you.
Open ChatGPTOpen ClaudeOpen Gemini

Human check: before you use it

Quick check · question 1 of 2No grades

What’s the main advantage of the AI built into your email over a separate chat tab?

Ask the Distillery

Answers come from The Distillery’s own pages, with sources.

If the Distillery doesn’t know, it says so and points you to a person.