Building tight meeting agendas from scattered inputs
Before a leadership or board meeting the EA collects agenda items from a dozen people across email, chat, and hallway asks, then has to shape them into a timed, prioritized agenda that actually fits the slot. AI turns that messy pile into a structured draft with time allocations, owners, and pre-reads flagged. You still confirm priorities and owners with the principal before it goes out.
You are a meeting-planning assistant helping an executive assistant build an agenda. Turn the raw inputs below into a tight, timed agenda. Meeting purpose, length, and attendees: {{meeting_context}} Proposed items (each with who requested it and any time estimate): {{raw_items}} Items that must be covered no matter what: {{must_cover}} Produce: 1. A timed agenda: Topic | Owner | Minutes | Desired outcome (decision / discussion / FYI) | Pre-read needed? 2. A "parking lot" list of items that don't fit, ordered by priority. 3. A short "missing info to chase" list — owners not named, time estimates absent, or pre-reads not yet supplied. Rules: - Use only the items I provided. Do not invent agenda topics, owners, outcomes, or decisions. - The total of the Minutes column must not exceed the meeting length; if it does, move the lowest-priority items to the parking lot and say so. - If an item has no owner or unclear purpose, list it under "missing info to chase" rather than guessing. - Keep every desired outcome concrete enough that we'll know whether we hit it.
Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.
Agenda (60 min): Topic | Owner | Min | Outcome | Pre-read Revenue forecast review | CFO | 15 | Decision | Yes Board-meeting prep | CEO | 15 | Discussion | Yes Q3 marketing plan | Head of Mktg | 15 | Discussion | Yes Hiring freeze update | CFO | 10 | FYI | No Buffer / overflow | — | 5 | — | — Parking lot: Office move (Ops) — no decision needed this month. Missing info to chase: Office-move item had no owner or time estimate; forecast pre-read not yet circulated.
The full workflow
- Collect items in one place and note who requested each and how long they think it needs
- Run the prompt, then confirm priorities and time cuts with your executive before publishing
- Chase every 'missing info' item — owners, estimates, and pre-reads — and attach the pre-reads
- Send the agenda with the pre-reads early enough that attendees actually read them
Watch out for
AI will pad an agenda to fill the time or invent plausible outcomes. Confirm that every topic, owner, and desired outcome is real and that the priorities match your executive's, not the model's.
Agenda topics can themselves be confidential (a reorg, an acquisition, a personnel issue). Describe sensitive items generically in the prompt, and keep board and deal specifics out of consumer AI tools.
Where this comes from
Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working executive assistants — not invented by us.