How to write better emails using ChatGPT

Email is where most professionals spend a disproportionate amount of their day. It’s also where AI saves the most time, most quickly.

Here’s exactly how I use ChatGPT for email.

The basic prompt structure

You don’t need a complicated formula. This works:

“Write a professional email to [who] about [what]. The tone should be [tone]. Key points to include: [list them]. Keep it under [length] words.”

The more specific you are, the better what comes back.

For difficult emails

Some emails just won’t come out right. You write three drafts and delete them all.

This is ChatGPT’s strongest use case for email. See also: how to write a good AI prompt for difficult conversations.

“I need to write an email to [person/role] about [situation]. The situation is delicate because [explain]. I want to be [direct/diplomatic/firm/warm] without being [defensive/aggressive/vague]. Draft it for me.”

Read what comes back. It won’t be perfect — it never is. But it’ll be better than your third draft and it took thirty seconds.

For reply emails

Paste in the email you’ve received and ask:

“Draft a professional reply to this email. My position is [your position]. Tone should be [tone].”

For long chains

Paste in the thread and ask:

“Summarise this thread in three bullet points, then draft my reply addressing the main outstanding question.”

For polishing your own draft

Write your email first — in your own voice, with your own judgment. Then:

“Here’s an email I’ve drafted. Don’t rewrite it. Just tell me if anything sounds unclear, passive-aggressive, or could be misread — and suggest a fix for each one.”

This keeps the email sounding like you. ChatGPT just catches what you missed.

The one thing to remember

Always read the whole email before you send it. ChatGPT occasionally misses context you gave it verbally, adds a sentence that doesn’t fit, or phrases something in a way that’s slightly off for your relationship with that person.

Your judgment is still in the loop. It should be.

That Clicked covers email and writing in depth across the course modules.

— Anna