As of 13 August 2026, AI can write a performance improvement plan.

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 the employee's current role description, performance policy and any relevant capability or disciplinary procedure.
   2. Gather dated, objective evidence of the performance issue, including agreed standards, examples, work records, prior feedback and support already offered.
   3. Ask the employee's manager and an HR colleague to confirm the facts, the expected standard, the proposed review period and the support or training available.
   4. Paste the material into the prompt under the matching headings and ask the chatbot to draft the plan without adding facts or legal conclusions.
   5. Compare every performance example, date, target and policy reference in the draft with the source documents, and replace each [NEEDS HUMAN INPUT] item before circulation.
   6. Ask the HR colleague to check that the objectives are measurable, achievable, consistent with comparable cases and appropriate in light of any known support or adjustment needs.
   7. Discuss the draft through the employer's normal process, give the employee an opportunity to respond, and send only the approved version.

   Prompt

   Draft a fair, specific performance improvement plan for a UK workplace using only the information below. Do not invent facts, dates, policies, performance data or conversations. Do not diagnose the employee, infer a protected characteristic, or state that the employee has breached employment law. Separate confirmed evidence from assumptions and mark any missing information as [NEEDS HUMAN INPUT]. Use a neutral, respectful tone and include: the performance standard or role expectation, the documented gap, specific examples and their dates if supplied, measurable improvement objectives, support and training the employer will provide, how progress will be measured, review meetings and review dates, the period covered, what the employee can do if they disagree or need support, and the possible next step if improvement is not achieved, phrased as subject to company policy and a fair process. End with a short checklist of factual, policy and fairness questions for the manager or HR colleague to answer before issuing it. Do not give legal conclusions. This is not professional advice.
   
   Role and expectations:
   [PASTE ROLE DESCRIPTION OR RELEVANT EXPECTATIONS]
   
   Documented performance concerns and evidence:
   [PASTE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES, DATES, METRICS AND PRIOR FEEDBACK]
   
   Previous support, training or adjustments offered:
   [PASTE DETAILS OR WRITE NONE KNOWN]
   
   Relevant company policy and process:
   [PASTE THE RELEVANT POLICY OR SUMMARISE IT]
   
   Proposed review period and meeting dates:
   [PASTE DETAILS]
   
   Other constraints or context the manager wants considered:
   [PASTE ONLY INFORMATION THE EMPLOYER IS ENTITLED TO USE]

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