How to get AI to
write an email.

What you’ll be able to do

By the end of this you’ll have one email, written and sent, that actually says what you need in the first line. Not a template you’ll tweak forever. Not a draft sitting in your outbox for three days because it still sounds wrong. One email, the ask up front, the tone right for whoever’s reading it, sent today.

That’s it. That’s the whole promise. There’s an email you’ve been putting off, right, an invoice chase or an awkward reply or a polite no you can’t quite phrase. This is how you get it done.

Before you start

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about email: it’s not the writing that’s hard, it’s the deciding. What do you actually want. What’s the one thing you need from this person. Most bad emails aren’t badly written, they’re badly aimed, three paragraphs of context before the ask even shows up.

So before you touch any AI tool, work out three things. What’s the outcome you want. Who’s reading it (your boss, a client, someone you’ve never met, your mum). And what tone fits that person. A firm email to a supplier reads completely wrong sent to your favourite colleague.

The structure that actually works, and this is worth knowing whether AI’s involved or not, goes like this. Subject line states the ask, something like “Invoice 1042, can you confirm payment by Friday?” not “Following up”. First line repeats that ask and adds the deadline. Then the context, after, not before. One ask per email, always. Last line is the next step, what happens now. And no “I hope this finds you well”. Nobody’s ever meant that sentence in the history of email.

Get that structure clear in your head and the AI part becomes easy. The tool isn’t writing the email for you, not really, it’s typing faster than you while you steer.

Get set up

You’ve got two main routes here, and which one fits depends on what you’re already using.

Route one is any general AI assistant, used for free, outside your email app entirely. ChatGPT at chatgpt.com, Claude at claude.ai, Gemini at gemini.google.com, all of them do this on their free tiers. You tell it the situation, tell it who’s reading, tell it the tone, and it gives you a draft. Then you steer with a single word: shorter, warmer, more formal, cut the apology. When it’s right, you paste it into your mail app yourself. That’s the whole workflow.

Route two is inside the mail app itself. Gmail has “Help me write”, which shows up in the compose window as a prompt bar at the bottom. You type what you want, hit Create, then refine the draft for tone and clarity until it reads right. Worth knowing: this needs an eligible Google Workspace account or a Google AI plan, and if you’re on a personal Google account it’s currently US-only. So check that before you go looking for it.

Outlook has Copilot, which works in new Outlook, Outlook for Microsoft 365, and the iOS and Android apps. New mail, then the Copilot icon, then Draft, type your prompt, hit Generate, and there’s a dropdown to change length or tone before you Keep it. One catch: it doesn’t work on plain-text messages. And Microsoft’s own wording is that you need an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription and/or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, so if you’re not sure, ask whoever runs your Microsoft 365 setup at work.

If you’re on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, there’s also Apple’s Writing Tools, built into iOS 18.1 and later on compatible devices, in regions where Apple Intelligence is available. Select your text, tap Writing Tools, choose Proofread or Rewrite (Friendly, Professional, Concise), or just describe the change you want.

None of these need anything installed beyond what you likely already have. Pick the one that’s already sitting in front of you and go.

Try it yourself

Right, here’s where it gets concrete. Three prompts, three different jobs. Copy them, fill in the brackets, adjust as needed.

For a straightforward ask, something you need from someone, use this:

Write an email to [name], who is [relationship]. I need [the ask] by [date]. Background, in order of importance: [facts]. Tone: [warm / neutral / firm]. Put the ask in the first sentence and keep it under 120 words.

That last instruction matters more than it looks. Under 120 words forces the ask to the front, because there’s no room for throat-clearing.

For the email you’ve actually been dreading, the one where someone’s asked for something you can’t or won’t give them, try this:

Here is the email I received: [paste]. I want to [outcome] without [what you want to avoid]. Give me two replies: one direct, one softer. Use only the facts I give you: [facts].

Getting two versions matters here. The direct one shows you the bare bones of what you’re saying no to. The softer one shows you how much cushioning you actually need, which is often less than you’d guess. Read both, pick, or take a line from each.

And if you want the email to sound like you wrote it, not like a slightly-too-polished stranger, this is the one:

Here are three emails I wrote myself: [paste]. Rewrite the draft above so it sounds like these, same sentence length, same level of formality, same sign-off.

Which brings up the bigger question of how you get an AI to sound like you consistently, rather than doing this every single time.

The properly free way is exactly what that third prompt does: paste in three emails you actually sent, ones that feel like you, and say “write like these”. Most assistants can hold onto that through custom instructions or memory settings, so you’re not re-pasting the same three emails every week. If you’ve got three emails sitting in your sent folder and don’t mind that, it does the same job.

Check the result

Before you send anything, and I mean anything, read it out loud. Actually out loud, not in your head. You’ll catch the stiff bits your eyes slide past.

Then check specifically: is the ask in line one? Not paragraph two, not buried after two sentences of pleasantries, line one. Would a stranger, someone with zero context, know exactly what to do next after reading it? If you’re not sure, that’s the tell.

Check names. Check dates. Check amounts. AI tools get these wrong more often than you’d expect, especially if you’ve pasted messy context, and it’s the kind of mistake that makes you look careless rather than the tool.

And here’s the one people forget: if you’ve mentioned an attachment, is it actually attached? The AI cannot see your files. It can write “please find attached” with total confidence while nothing’s attached at all. That’s on you to check, every time.

If it doesn’t work

Sometimes the draft comes back wrong, and it’s usually one of a few things.

Too stiff, sounds like a legal letter when you wanted a quick note. Tell it: “write it like a message to a colleague, then tidy the spelling.” That reframing does more than asking for “casual” ever does.

It invents details, a date you never gave it, a figure that’s close but not right. This happens. Give it a short facts list and say “use only these”, explicitly. That one line cuts down the guessing a lot.

It over-apologises, three sorries before the actual point. Say: “no apology, no thanks-in-advance.” Blunt, but it works.

Now, the bit that actually matters more than any of that: what not to paste in. Don’t put someone else’s whole confidential email thread into a consumer chatbot, ever, that’s not your information to hand over. If you need to reference sensitive detail, redact names, account numbers, reference numbers, before you paste anything. And if you’re doing this at work, follow your employer’s AI policy, properly, because the built-in tools inside Outlook or Gmail run under your employer’s own data terms, while a personal ChatGPT or Claude account absolutely does not. Those are different arrangements even if the output looks the same on screen.

Questions people ask

Can I get AI to write an email for free?

Yes. ChatGPT at chatgpt.com, Claude at claude.ai and Gemini at gemini.google.com all do this on their free tiers. You tell it the situation, who's reading and the tone, then paste the draft into your mail app yourself.

How do I use Help me write in Gmail or Copilot in Outlook?

In Gmail, "Help me write" appears as a prompt bar at the bottom of the compose window: type what you want and hit Create. In Outlook, choose New mail, the Copilot icon, then Draft, type your prompt and hit Generate, using the dropdown to change length or tone before you Keep it.

Why can't I see Help me write or Copilot in my email app?

Gmail's Help me write needs an eligible Google Workspace account or a Google AI plan, and on a personal Google account it's currently US-only. Outlook's Copilot needs an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription and/or a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and it doesn't work on plain-text messages.

What should I not paste into an AI chatbot when drafting an email?

Don't put someone else's whole confidential email thread into a consumer chatbot. Redact names, account numbers and reference numbers first, and at work follow your employer's AI policy, since built-in Outlook or Gmail tools run under your employer's data terms while a personal ChatGPT or Claude account does not.

How do I check an AI-written email before sending it?

Read it out loud, check the ask is in line one, and make sure a stranger would know what to do next. Check names, dates and amounts, and if you've mentioned an attachment, check it's actually attached, because the AI cannot see your files.

Keep exploring

This guide gets you one email out the door today. If you’re sending a lot of them and want the AI doing more of the sending itself, look at “How to get AI to send emails for me”. If your inbox is the actual problem, not just one message, “How to get AI to handle my emails” covers that. And if you want your voice to come through consistently without pasting samples every time, “How to get AI to sound like me” goes deeper on that.

Sources and review notes

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/13955415 https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/outlook/copilot-pages/draft-an-email-message-with-copilot-in-outlook https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/word/copilot/draft-and-add-content-with-copilot-in-word https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iph6f08da1d2/ios https://scriptgrain.com/pricing

Review date: 2026-09-22

Disclosure: ScriptGrain is one of our products — this site is made by the same studio, Adapt Progress Evolve. We have tried to compare fairly, and the alternatives named are real and worth a look.