Turning E-Mails into AI-Mails ✉️

Your weekly dose of AI clarity, minus the complexity

Author

Jamie Oarton
January 18, 2025

Your weekly does of AI clarity, minus the complexity

Welcome, AI Freedom Finders

Emails have taken over work and personal life. Over 10 years ago, McKinsey estimated nearly 1/3 of all work time was taken up with email. Today it’s almost certainly more. But now with AI things are changing. In this week’s AB we are showing you how.

Using the REPLY framework to write personal, high-quality responses to your email is the game-changer you didn’t even realise you needed…

In today’s Brief:

  • Set tasks with ChatGPT 📆

  • OpenAI Bot Crashes Website 💥

  • Teens increasingly rely on ChatGPT for schoolwork 🚸

Today’s Feature:

Turning E-mails into AI-mails ✉️

Source: OpenAI | The AI Brief

The Brief: ChatGPT introduced scheduled tasks and reminders for Plus users this week, marking a key step towards more autonomous AI assistants with potential workforce transformation by late 2025.

I will be doing a more in-depth review on this next week.

Details:

  • ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users can now schedule reminders and set recurring tasks through a new beta feature.

  • Users can ask ChatGPT to remind them about events or provide regular updates like weekly plans or daily news briefings.

  • The tasks feature represents OpenAI's initial step towards developing AI agents, with CEO Sam Altman predicting significant advancements in 2025.

  • While currently limited, the feature allows web browsing on a schedule and sets the stage for more complex AI assistant capabilities.

Why It Matters:

AI assistants are transitioning from reactive tools to proactive agents, potentially revolutionising personal productivity and task management. This signals a fundamental shift in how we'll interact with digital technology, making AI more integrated into daily life.

Source: Triplegangers

The Brief: OpenAI's aggressive web crawler overwhelmed a small Ukrainian e-commerce site, causing website crashes and raising critical concerns about consensual AI data collection practices.

Details:

  • OpenAI's bot overwhelmed Triplegangers' e-commerce site with 600 IP addresses, attempting to download 65,000 product pages and hundreds of thousands of photos.

  • The company's website, specialising in 3D human digital doubles, was effectively taken offline by the relentless scraping, resembling a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack.

  • Triplegangers was forced to implement a robot.txt file and Cloudflare blocking to prevent AI bots from accessing their meticulously tagged image database.

  • The incident highlights a growing problem of AI companies scraping websites without permission, with research showing an 86% increase in invalid traffic from AI crawlers in 2024.

Why It Matters:

Small businesses face unprecedented digital vulnerability as AI companies aggressively harvest data without consent, potentially crippling online operations and exposing sensitive content through unchecked web scraping practices.

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Source: OpenAI | The AI Brief

The Brief: ChatGPT usage among US teens has doubled, with 26% using AI for schoolwork, revealing complex attitudes towards technology's academic appropriateness and potential learning challenges.

Details:

  • 26% of US teens aged 13-17 report using ChatGPT for schoolwork, double the number from two years ago.

  • Over half of surveyed teens think ChatGPT is acceptable for researching new subjects, with lower acceptance for maths and essay writing.

  • Studies suggest ChatGPT has significant limitations, including poor performance on advanced academic tests and potential negative impacts on learning outcomes.

  • Research showed that Black and Hispanic teens are more likely to use ChatGPT for school-related work.

Why It Matters:

Teen AI adoption is accelerating faster than educators can adapt, creating potential academic performance risks. The technology's uneven reliability and widespread usage signal a transformative moment in how students approach learning and information gathering.

Turning E-mails into AI-mails

Source: OpenAI / The AI Brief

According to McKinsey*, professionals spend nearly a third of their workday managing emails. While AI tools promise to help, most people find themselves stuck between completely AI-generated emails that sound robotic and the time-consuming process of writing everything from scratch. Here's a framework that gives you the best of both worlds.

The REPLY Framework

Rather than throwing your email at ChatGPT and hoping for the best, use this simple framework to create better emails in half the time:

Review: Quickly scan the incoming email and copy the key points into your AI tool of choice. For example: "Extract the main points and any action items from this email... [paste email]"

Extract: Have AI identify what needs addressing. A simple prompt like: "What are the key points I need to respond to, and what additional context might I need?"

Plan: Give AI your bullet-point response plan: "I want to: agree to the meeting / suggest next Tuesday / mention our budget constraints" (Some AI models are now able to check your calendar for this type of activity)

Layout: Let AI structure your response using those points: "Write an email response using these points. Tone should be professional but friendly."

Your Touch: This is crucial - add your personal elements and edit. AI won't know that you usually joke with Bob about football or that Sarah prefers ultra-brief responses.

Example

Original email: "Hi, hoping to schedule a meeting about the Q2 marketing budget. We need to discuss the new campaign and I have some concerns about our current spend. When works? Thanks, Jane"

Using REPLY:

  1. Review & Extract - AI identifies: meeting request, budget discussion, concerns about spend

  2. Plan - "Accept meeting, suggest times, acknowledge concerns"

  3. Layout - AI drafts response

  4. Your Touch - Add personal elements and edit

Final email: "Hi Jane,

Thanks for raising this - good timing actually, as I've just reviewed our Q1 numbers. I'm free Tuesday morning or Wednesday after 2pm for a proper discussion about the budget concerns.

Looking forward to brainstorming solutions together.

Best, [Name]"

Pro Tips

  • Use AI for structure, not personality

  • Always edit transitions - AI loves phrases like "I hope this email finds you well" (You can also tell it what NOT to do)

  • Keep your brand voice guide or common phrases doc handy

  • When in doubt, shorter is better

Try this framework with your next important email. Once you've done it a few times, the whole process takes just a couple of minutes.

The AI Brief is proudly written in British English. Some AI tools default to American English - a quick "write this in British English" sorts that.

Want to get even more AI value? Check out my channel: youtube.com/@jamieoarton

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