What to delegate to an AI assistant, and what to keep

Hand an AI assistant work that is repeatable, easy to check and cheap to get wrong: summaries, first drafts, checklists, plans. Keep the work that turns on judgment, relationships or professional advice, and anything that needs access the assistant doesn't have.

The sorting rule: four questions

Before you hand something over, ask four questions about it.

• Can I describe it in a few sentences? If you can't brief it, you can't delegate it, to a person or to software. See how to write a brief.
• Can I check the result faster than I could do the work? A summary of a supplier's proposal you have already read is quick to check. A summary of twenty pages you haven't opened isn't.
• If it is wrong, will I catch it before it matters? A draft reply sits in front of you until you send it. A message that has gone out in your name can't be taken back.
• Does the assistant have everything it needs? It works from what you give it. If the job needs your inbox, your accounts, a phone call or a person's trust, it needs you.

Four yeses: hand it over. A no on any of them: keep the job, or hand over only a piece of it (the draft, the outline, the list of questions) and do the rest yourself. Most work splits this way. The assistant does the reading and the first version; you make the call and press send. If you are still deciding whether an AI assistant suits your work at all, start with an honest checklist.

What to keep yourself

• Decisions about people. Hiring, firing, a pay rise, which client to let go. An assistant can lay out the options and the questions to ask; the decision is yours.
• Relationships. The apology to a regular who had a bad evening, a condolence note, the hard conversation with a supplier. A draft can help you start, but the words that reach a person should be yours, and so should the sending.
• Legal, medical and financial advice. An AI assistant can explain terms in plain words, summarise a document you paste or draft questions for your accountant, lawyer or doctor. It is none of them, and its answer is not advice to rely on.
• Anything that needs access it doesn't have: your bank, your inbox, your logins, your customers' private details. Don't paste passwords or card numbers into any chat.
• The final say on anything public. Prices on your site, claims about your product, a reply to a review: read it before it goes out.

None of this means an assistant can't touch these areas. It means the assistant prepares and you decide. A list of five questions to ask a lawyer about a lease is a good job to delegate; the reading of the lease is the lawyer's.

Research: hand over the reading, keep the conclusions

Research is where an AI assistant helps most and misleads most. It is good at reading and organising what you give it, and it can state a wrong fact as confidently as a right one. So give it the material, and keep the judgment:

• A summary of a long document you paste, such as a supplier's proposal, meeting notes or a long customer complaint, with the part each point comes from.
• A comparison table of options you name: three booking apps by price, features and what each one lacks, built from their pages, which you paste in.
• Questions to ask: a landlord before signing, a web developer before hiring, a supplier before the first order.
• A first map of a topic you don't know: the terms, the usual steps, what to read next.

Check every number against its source, and ask the assistant to list separately what you should verify. A fact that matters to your business deserves a second look whoever found it.

Drafts: let it write the first version

• Replies to customer emails and reviews, from the message you paste.
• Product descriptions, a menu, an FAQ, the text of a price list.
• A job ad from your notes on the role.
• A month of social posts; see a month of posts in one sitting.
• A newsletter, a launch email, a follow-up after a meeting.

Your part is the facts, the voice and the last read. Paste one or two things you wrote before and say “write like this”; it works better than any adjective. And keep the facts in front of the assistant rather than in your head: prices, dates and names that aren't in the brief tend to come back invented or as placeholders. Whether one general chatbot is enough for this, or a team with different crafts serves you better, is its own question: see one chatbot or an AI team.

Busywork and planning

Small, repeatable chores are where delegation adds up. Microsoft's Work Trend Index says the average worker receives 117 emails a day, based on Microsoft 365 usage data up to February 2025 that excludes EU and education customers: Microsoft WorkLab, 2025. Not all of that can be handed over, but the reading and the first draft often can:

• Paste a long thread; get a three-line summary and the one question only you can answer.
• Paste ten customer questions; get them grouped, with a draft answer for each group.
• Turn meeting notes into a list of who does what.
• Turn a messy to-do list into a plan, with the two things that can't slip at the top.
• Reformat: a price list into a table, rough notes into a tidy document.

The assistant reads and drafts. Opening the inbox, picking what matters and pressing send stay with you.

Planning

• A plan for the week from your list and the calendar you paste.
• A checklist for a launch, a stock count or an event.
• A run-sheet for a workshop: times, who does what, what to bring.
• A content plan for the month.

A plan is easy to check, because you know your own week better than anyone. That makes planning one of the safest things to hand over, and one of the quickest wins.

How to check what comes back

Read the output the way you would read a new colleague's first piece of work: carefully, and against the brief. This list fits on a sticky note.

[ ] Facts: every name, price, date and number matches my source.
[ ] Nothing invented: no quotes, statistics, links or promises I didn't give it.
[ ] The brief: it does what I asked, in the length and sections I asked for.
[ ] Voice: it sounds like us, not like an advert.
[ ] Risk: nothing in it is legal, medical or financial advice I'm relying on.
[ ] Would I sign it? If not, say what to change and ask again.

Where Vott fits, and where it doesn't

Vott is a workspace of six AI employees (software, not people) that you chat with, call on video and give tasks to. Iris, the executive assistant, takes the work this guide calls safe to delegate: plans, checklists, drafts and summaries. She is also the first stop when you're not sure who should take something.

• Tell Iris about your business once; she keeps notes for next time.
• On the Dashboard, Plan my week and Summarise what is open send that request to her straight away.
• She sees the recent part of your conversations with the rest of the team and your open tasks, so she can say where things stand.
• Bigger pieces go to a specialist: Sofia for a landing page, Priya for copy and emails, Mara for interface design, Daniyar for backend code, Nadia for turning a rough idea into a plan. Iris names who should take it and writes the brief.
• Chat doesn't count against your plan; tasks and call minutes do.

What Vott can't do

• It has no access to your email, accounts, site or files. Employees see only what you write or paste.
• It can't browse the internet: research works on what you paste, and facts from the AI's own knowledge need checking.
• It can't publish, send or post anything; a draft reply stays a draft until you send it yourself.
• It can't make images, and its employees don't promise dates or business results.
• Nobody at Vott reviews the work. You check each result and press Accept or Request changes.
• Chat replies in the language you write in; calls are in English only for now.

To try the sorting rule on one job:

1. 1Open Iris in Chat and tell her in two or three sentences what your business does.
2. 2Paste the material and ask for the draft, the summary or the plan.
3. 3Check it with the list above and ask for changes in the same chat.
4. 4For a larger piece, agree a brief: it becomes a task on Tasks, which you review with Accept or Request changes.

More in Who to ask for what and What employees can and can't do.