Prompt Packs

July 24, 2026

The Government Employee’s ChatGPT Work Starter Pack

# AI Techniques

How to use ChatGPT Work to turn complexity into review-ready results.

Laura Keenan

Government work rarely arrives as one neat question.

It arrives as a stack of reports, a crowded calendar, three versions of a spreadsheet, meeting notes, competing deadlines, and an email asking for a “quick one-page brief” by 3:00 p.m.

That is why ChatGPT Work is so powerful.

ChatGPT can help answer a question. ChatGPT Work can help move an entire assignment forward. Give it an outcome, the relevant source material, your constraints, and the standards the work must meet. It can then help research the topic, analyze information, work through multiple steps, and create a review-ready document, spreadsheet, presentation, report, or Site.

The employee remains in charge—setting the direction, checking the work, applying expertise, and making the decision. But instead of starting with a blank page, you can start with momentum.

What makes ChatGPT Work different?

The real power is not simply generating text faster. It is helping you connect the steps that normally live in different documents, meetings, and mental to-do lists.

For example, ChatGPT Work can help you move from:

A folder of source documents to a decision-ready brief

A spreadsheet of results to an analysis and leadership summary

Meeting materials to a preparation brief, action tracker, and follow-up message

A project goal to a plan, timeline, risk register, and communications package

A recurring responsibility to a documented, reusable workflow

One core message to tailored materials for leaders, employees, partners, and the public

That means you can give ChatGPT Work more than a task. You can give it the desired outcome.

The prompt shift

Instead of:

Summarize this report.

Try:

Review this report, identify the findings that affect our program, verify each finding against the source, surface unresolved questions, and create a one-page decision brief for my leadership team.

The first prompt produces a summary. The second begins to move the work.

A strong ChatGPT Work prompt usually includes five things:

Outcome: What needs to exist when the work is finished?

Context: Who is it for, and why does it matter?

Sources: What information should ChatGPT use?

Constraints: What must it preserve, avoid, or verify?

Review criteria: What does a high-quality result look like?

Ready to try it? Start with one of these.

1. Build a decision-ready brief

Use this when leadership needs the bottom line, the evidence, and a clear path forward.

I need to prepare a decision brief for [audience] about [topic].
Review the attached source materials and complete the following steps:
Identify the central issue or decision.
Extract the most relevant evidence, with page or section references.
Identify what has changed and why it matters.
Surface risks, dependencies, and unresolved questions.
Develop the available options and their tradeoffs.
Draft a one-page brief with a bottom line, supporting evidence, options, and recommended next step.
Use only the supplied sources. Separate confirmed facts from assumptions or inferences. Mark any statement that requires additional verification.

2. Research a question—and show the work

ChatGPT Work can help you get smart on a new issue while keeping the research trail visible.

Research the following question: [question].
Use authoritative, current sources, prioritizing [official government sources, agency guidance, statutes, regulations, or other approved sources].
Create:
A concise answer to the question
A source table with title, publisher, date, link, and relevance
Areas where the sources agree
Areas where the sources differ or remain unclear
Information that may be outdated or time-sensitive
Five follow-up questions for a subject-matter expert
A short briefing note for [audience]
Cite the source supporting each major claim. Do not fill gaps with assumptions.

3. Create a complete meeting package

A meeting is rarely just a meeting. There is the preparation, the conversation, the follow-through, and the inevitable question about who agreed to do what.

Help me manage this meeting from preparation through follow-up.
Using the invitation, background material, and notes I provide, create:
A one-page preparation brief
The desired meeting outcome
Five questions I should ask
Decisions that may be needed
Potential risks or sensitivities
A decision log
An action tracker with owners and deadlines
A concise follow-up email
A three-bullet leadership update
Separate confirmed facts from assumptions. Do not invent a decision, owner, or deadline. Use “TBD” when the information is missing.

4. Turn a spreadsheet into a useful story

A chart can show what happened. Good analysis helps people understand what deserves attention.

Analyze the attached spreadsheet for [purpose].
Work through the following steps:
Review the structure and explain what each field appears to represent.
Identify missing, inconsistent, or potentially unreliable data.
Calculate the most relevant summary statistics.
Identify important patterns, changes, and outliers.
Recommend the clearest tables or charts for communicating the findings.
Draft a short narrative explaining what the data shows.
Create a leadership summary with the key finding, implications, limitations, and next questions.
Do not imply causation from correlation. Clearly label any interpretation that requires validation from a program or data expert.

5. Create a communications package from one source

One announcement may need to become a leadership note, staff message, partner update, and public explanation. ChatGPT Work can help adapt the material while keeping the underlying facts consistent.

Using the approved source material below, create a communications package about [topic].
Include:
A five-bullet leadership summary
A concise employee email
A plain-language explanation for a nontechnical audience
Five anticipated questions and draft answers
A list of statements requiring policy, legal, communications, or subject-matter review
Preserve all dates, requirements, qualifications, and approved terminology. Do not add claims that are not supported by the source.

6. Turn a recurring task into a reusable workflow

This is where ChatGPT Work becomes especially valuable: not only helping once, but helping you build a better way to approach the work next time.

Help me turn the following recurring responsibility into a repeatable workflow: [describe the responsibility].
Identify:
The desired outcome
Required inputs and authoritative sources
Major steps and dependencies
Decisions requiring human judgment
Required review or approval points
Common failure modes
The final deliverables
Then create:
A step-by-step workflow
A reusable starter prompt
A quality-control checklist
A template for the final deliverable
A list of situations that should be escalated to a person
Ask me questions before drafting if important requirements are missing.

7. Red-team the work before it moves forward

ChatGPT Work can help create the deliverable. It can also take a fresh pass at finding what the first draft missed.

Review the attached draft as a rigorous, skeptical reviewer.
Evaluate:
Whether the evidence supports the conclusions
Missing facts or source references
Contradictions or logical gaps
Unclear assumptions
Risks that may be understated
Unclear owners, dates, or decisions
Language that could be misunderstood
Questions a senior leader, partner, auditor, or member of the public may ask
First provide an issue table with the passage, concern, significance, and recommended fix. Then produce a revised draft that addresses the confirmed issues without changing the underlying policy or decision.

Powerful still needs responsible

ChatGPT Work can take on more of the process, but more capability makes clear direction and thoughtful review even more important.

Before beginning:

Use the approved workspace. Conduct government work in the account and workspace authorized by your organization.

Use authorized information. Follow your organization’s requirements for classified, controlled, personal, procurement-sensitive, or otherwise protected information.

Design around sources. Tell ChatGPT which sources it may use and require citations for important claims.

Keep judgment human. Employees remain responsible for consequential decisions, official determinations, approvals, and final products.

Review the complete package. Verify facts, calculations, quotations, citations, formatting, and recommendations before the work moves forward.

Your organization may control which ChatGPT Work features are available and how information is accessed, retained, or managed. Follow the policies and administrative controls associated with your managed account.

Start with one meaningful assignment

Choose one recurring, lower-risk assignment. Provide the source material, audience, constraints, and definition of a good result. Let ChatGPT Work help move through the steps. Then review the package, improve the instructions, and save what worked.

The real promise is not fewer people in the loop. It is better-prepared people in the loop—with more time for judgment, relationships, creativity, and the mission work only they can do.

Want to see ChatGPT work in action? Check out this online resource.