Part 4 · Using software and AI · Chapter 4.13
AI for office work
Draft: the wording may change.
The idea
The best first use of AI in a stockist's office is the writing work nobody enjoys: drafting letters, translating messages, summarising company circulars and turning price lists into tables. These jobs save real time, and a mistake in a draft is cheap because a person reads it before it goes out.
Four jobs worth handing over
| Job | What you give it | What you get back | What you check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drafting | "Write a polite reminder to a retailer, ₹8,400 due for 40 days" | A short message, ready to edit | Amount, days, tone, no promises you didn't mean |
| Translating | A company's English scheme note | A Tamil version the salesmen can read | Product names, numbers, scheme conditions |
| Summarising | A six-page circular from the company | Five lines: what changes, from when, what to do | The dates and the conditions, against the original |
| Reading price lists | A photo or PDF of the new list | A table of product, pack, old rate, new rate | Every rate, line by line, before it touches the master |
At the counter
On Monday morning the company sends a new scheme circular: four pages in English, effective from the 1st. The owner is on the road. The office clerk does three things in fifteen minutes:
- Asks the AI for a five-line summary of the circular for the owner. Reads it against the original and corrects one date it got wrong.
- Asks for a short Tamil phone message for the salesmen: "From the 1st, on the 1 kg pack, buy 10 get 1 free, only for kirana outlets." Checks that "only for kirana outlets" survived the translation — it is the line that decides who gets the scheme.
- Asks for a table of the 22 products in the attached price list with old and new rates. Ticks each line against the PDF before handing it to the person who updates prices.
Before AI, the same work took most of the morning and the Tamil message often went out late, so salesmen sold the first two days on the old scheme.
How to ask
- Say who it is for. "For a kirana owner, in simple Tamil" gives a better draft than "translate this".
- Give the facts; ask for the words. You supply the amount, the date and the name. AI supplies the sentences. Never ask it to fill in a figure it doesn't have.
- Ask for short. Retailers and salesmen read on a phone. Five lines beats fifty.
- Leave out what doesn't belong. A reminder needs the shop's first name and the amount, not its GSTIN or phone number (chapter 4.18).
Common mistake
Sending a translated scheme message without reading it. AI translations are fluent, which makes it easy to miss that "minimum 10 cases" became "10 cases" or that a condition was dropped. A salesman who promises a free case the company won't pay for creates a claim that will be rejected — and that free case comes out of your margin.
Where you'll use this
This is the oldest office rule in a new form: the person who sends it owns it. A letter signed by the owner was always his letter, whoever typed it. The same goes for a message drafted by AI. When the AI moves from drafting words to suggesting entries in the books, the checking becomes formal (chapter 4.17).
Check yourself
- Why is drafting a safe first job to give AI?
- In a reminder message, which facts should you give the AI and which should it write?
- What should you check first in a translated scheme message?
Answers
- A person reads the draft before it goes out, so a mistake is caught before it costs anything.
- You give the facts — name, amount, days overdue. AI writes the sentences around them.
- The numbers and the conditions: quantities, dates, and who the scheme applies to.