AI or human executive assistant: what each one is good at

A person reads a room. They notice that a board member is unhappy before anyone says so, they know which of your colleagues needs a call and which needs a note, and they can represent you with the kind of judgement that comes from years of knowing you.

A person can also do things that need a body or a voice. Software cannot do these:

• Calling a hotel, a client or a doctor and handling the conversation as it goes.
• Physical errands: collecting documents, arranging a dinner on the spot, being at the office when a courier arrives.
• Building relationships with the people around you, including other assistants, over years.
• Making a sensitive call on your behalf when nobody has written down the rule.

An AI assistant is available at any hour and works in the background between conversations. Bumblebee reads every message that comes into your inbox, prepares a brief before each meeting with someone outside your company, and keeps track of every promise made in either direction, with where each one came from.

It also keeps everything you allow it to remember, on a Memory page you can open and correct. Nothing is lost when someone goes on holiday or changes jobs, and you do not have to recruit, train or cover for it.

Bumblebee can't make phone calls, can't be in the room, and can't make a judgement call about a person it has never seen you deal with. By default it asks for your OK before anything leaves your hands, such as sending an email or moving a meeting, so it needs you more often than a trusted person would.

It also only works with what you connect. Today that means Google mail, calendar, contacts and Drive. Outlook is not supported yet.

The simplest split is by kind of work. Bumblebee takes the volume: triaging the inbox, drafting routine replies, preparing meeting briefs, chasing open promises and building first drafts of decks and documents. Your EA takes the judgement and the people: deciding what really matters this week, handling the conversations that need tact, and the errands that need someone there.

An EA cannot sign in to your Bumblebee as a delegate yet. For now, you use Bumblebee yourself and pass work to your EA as you do today.

If you already have a strong EA, an AI assistant can take the reading and drafting that eats their day, and they can spend more of it on the work only they can do. If you have no EA, an AI assistant is a way to get help with your inbox, meetings and follow-ups straight away, without hiring.

If your work is mostly calls, travel logistics and people who need a human touch, a human assistant is still the better first hire.