Like other public-sector agencies, your workplace may have been increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) during recent years. Gallup reported that in Q4 2025, 21% of public-sector workers used AI every day or multiple instances each week. In contrast, 25% of private-sector employees utilized AI often. AI can help governments, including local governments, engage with citizens, train employees, and more. This piece focuses on the common practice of drafting work e-mails with AI.
Your government may have already published guidance regarding employees’ use of AI. Be sure to follow any applicable policies.
Do you know that each day, 24% of workers use AI to write e-mails? Do you know that AI writes an estimated 16% of messages from managers? In fact, AI is used in at least half of messages from eight percent of managers.
AI can be easy to use. People do not have to visit an AI website to use AI in e-mails. Some e-mail platforms:
- Summarize incoming e-mails. – Be wary of relying on those summaries alone, as those synopses may not include key points in messages.
- Draft replies – Use of AI versions could have unintended negative consequences. For example, the drafts may make your points but with a tone that is very different from what you use orally. Thus, the drafts could confuse your e-mail recipients. You could try to revise the draft, but there still could be hints of AI in your outgoing e-mail.
AI can also help refine your initial drafts. For example, AI may ask you: “Would you like me to make the tone slightly sharper (more ‘firm correction’) or slightly warmer (more ‘mentorship with a gentle reminder’) depending on how you want this person to walk away feeling?” You may think that AI improves your original work, but you may also be losing skills, conceivably making it more difficult for you to write important documents, such as agency reports.
It may be tempting to use AI to write e-mails. You may:
- Want to save time, as people spend an average of 28% of their time on reading and replying to e-mails. AI assistance with e-mails could allow you to spend more time on crucial work. According to an experiment, utilization of ChatGBT decreased the amount of time that was spent on writing work, including e-mails, by 40 percent. – However, since AI allows people to send e-mails more quickly, AI could actually result in more e-mails to address.
- Be wary of your writing skills and conceivably think that AI could write better than you. – However, AI is not a substitute for your human thoughts. Even if AI may produce higher-quality writing, it can be formulaic and impersonal. Recipients of your e-mails may very well want to hear from you instead of from technology. In fact, they may be insulted if they received an AI-generated e-mail from you.
- Think that AI could improve your e-mails (especially when AI is combined with your writing). More than half (56%) feel that a combination of AI and human work can improve clarity. – On the other hand, using AI a little can conceivably result in AI-created errors and overreliance on AI.
In my next piece, entitled “The Drawbacks of Using AI to Send Work E-Mails,” learn more about ramifications of using AI to write e-mails while receiving other advice.
Miriam Edelman, MPA, MSSW, is a Washington, D.C.-based policy professional. Her experience includes policy work for Congress. Miriam’s undergraduate degree is from Barnard College, Columbia University, with majors in political science and urban studies. She has a master’s in public administration from Cornell University, where she was inducted into the national honorary society for public administration. She has a master’s of science in social work (focusing on policy) from Columbia University. She is a commissioner of the DC Commission on Persons with Disabilities. Miriam aims to continue her career in public service. She is especially interested in democracy, civic education, District of Columbia autonomy, diversity, health policy, women’s issues, and disabilities.
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