As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly check expiry dates on your stock.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your stock control procedure and note the required fields, date rules and actions for expired, unclear and damaged stock.
   2. Group the stock by shelf, box or storage location and take one clear photograph of each label, keeping the product and its location identifiable.
   3. Add the date of the check and any known product, batch or location information to the photo names or a separate stock list.
   4. Paste the photographs and the prompt into a vision-capable chatbot, replacing [DATE OF CHECK] with the actual check date.
   5. Copy the returned table into your stock record and compare every transcribed date and status with the physical label, not just the photograph.
   6. Physically recheck every item marked unclear, date not found or contradictory, then follow your workplace procedure for quarantine, disposal or release and have the responsible colleague sign off the result.

   Prompt

   Check the expiry labels in the attached stock photographs. Use only text that is visible in the images and do not guess or fill gaps. For each item, return a table with: product name if visible, location or photo reference, batch or lot number if visible, the exact date as printed, whether the label says use by, best before or another term, and a status of expired, not expired, unclear or date not found as at [DATE OF CHECK]. Preserve the printed date format and state how you interpreted it. Flag any blurred, obstructed, contradictory or unusually formatted label for a physical recheck. Do not decide whether stock may legally or operationally be used, sold or discarded. Finish with a list of photographs or items that need a second photograph or manual check.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.