How to Write Reports and Summaries with AI

Nobody reads your report

That is not a criticism of your writing. It is simply what happens. A busy manager opens your document, reads the first paragraph, skims the headings, looks at any number that is bold, and decides whether to read further. Most of the time they do not read further, and they make a decision anyway based on what they took in during those forty seconds.

Once you accept that, report writing gets much easier, because you stop trying to write a document that is thorough and start trying to write one that survives being skimmed.

Structure first, always

The strongest habit in this entire course is refusing to let AI draft anything until you have agreed the shape. Ask for the skeleton, argue with it, then ask for prose. Drafting first and restructuring afterwards is how you end up rewriting three times.

I need to write a [report / summary / update] about [subject].
Audience: [job title], who has [5] minutes and cares most about [cost / risk / timing].
Purpose: they need to [make a decision / know what happened / approve something].
Do NOT write the report yet.
Give me a proposed structure only: section headings, one line on what goes in each,
and roughly how many words each should be. Total length [800] words.
Tell me which single section matters most for this reader.

The last line is quietly the best part. Asking which section matters most forces the AI to take a position, and its answer will often show you that you were about to lead with the wrong thing.

Then feed it the mess

Once the skeleton is agreed, hand over your raw material. It can be genuinely scrappy: half-typed notes, numbers copied from a spreadsheet, three emails, a paragraph you wrote on your phone. Reorganising scattered material into an agreed structure is the thing AI does best.

Use the structure we agreed. Below is all my raw material: notes, figures and
snippets, in no particular order.
Rules:

Use only what is in my material. Do not add facts, examples or figures.
If a section has nothing to support it, write GAP and tell me what is missing.
Do not describe the numbers, interpret them. Say what they mean for the reader.
Plain English. No phrases like leverage, synergies or going forward.
MY RAW MATERIAL:
[paste everything]

The GAP instruction is the safeguard. Without it, a thin section gets padded with confident filler that reads perfectly well and says nothing, and thin sections are exactly where you most need to know the truth.

Writing for the person who reads one paragraph

Your opening paragraph should contain the answer. Not the background, not the methodology, not a warm sentence about how the quarter has been challenging. The answer.

If a reader takes in nothing else, they should still know what happened, what it means and what you want them to do. Everything after that paragraph is evidence for people who want it.

Now tighten it

The first draft is always too long. Tightening is a separate pass with a separate instruction, and it is where the document becomes readable.

Cut this draft by 30 percent without losing any fact or conclusion.
Specifically:

Delete any sentence that does not tell the reader something new.
Turn any list of three or more items into bullets.
Replace vague phrases with the specific thing (significant, various, a number of).
Front-load every paragraph: put the point in the first sentence.
Flag any sentence a reader could interpret two ways.
THE DRAFT:
[paste it]

Summarising someone else's long document

The reverse job comes up just as often: a forty page document arrives and you need to know whether it matters to you.

Summarise the document below for someone in [your role].
Give me:

The main point, in one sentence.
The three things that affect my area specifically.
Anything that asks something of me, with any deadline attached.
Anything the document seems to be avoiding or glossing over.
Then list the page or section numbers I should read myself.
THE DOCUMENT:
[paste it]

That final instruction is what keeps you honest. A summary is a starting point for reading, not a replacement for it, and for anything that carries real consequences you should still read the two sections that matter with your own eyes.