As of 13 August 2026, AI can write a standard operating procedure for your UK business.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

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

   How to actually do it

   1. Open a blank document and collect the current process notes, screenshots, forms, checklists, policies and system instructions that staff actually use.
   2. Ask the people who perform the process to describe the trigger, every step, decision point, exception, handover, record and escalation route, then paste their notes into the prompt.
   3. Replace each bracketed slot in the prompt with the business-specific information, and label anything unknown rather than asking the model to guess.
   4. Paste the completed prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and save the draft SOP with its unanswered questions and sign-off checklist.
   5. Walk through the draft with the person who performs the process, carrying out each numbered step and correcting any instruction that does not match the live system, equipment, form or responsibility.
   6. Compare every safety, data protection, employment, financial or regulatory statement against the relevant current internal policy or authoritative UK source, and send specialist issues to the appropriate adviser.
   7. Run the corrected SOP through the process with a colleague who was not involved in drafting it, then record the approver, version, review date and location of the final document before issuing it to staff.

   Prompt

   Write a clear standard operating procedure for this UK business process.
   
   Process name: [PROCESS NAME]
   Business or team: [BUSINESS OR TEAM]
   Purpose: [WHAT THE PROCESS MUST ACHIEVE]
   When it applies: [TRIGGER OR SITUATION]
   Person responsible: [ROLE]
   People involved: [ROLES]
   Required training or authorisation: [DETAILS OR UNKNOWN]
   Tools, equipment and systems: [LIST]
   Inputs and information needed: [LIST]
   Current process notes: [PASTE NOTES, TRANSCRIPT OR ROUGH STEPS]
   Known exceptions and failure cases: [LIST]
   Records to create or retain: [LIST]
   Internal policies or source documents: [PASTE RELEVANT TEXT]
   
   Produce the SOP in plain UK English with these headings:
   1. Document control
   2. Purpose and scope
   3. Roles and responsibilities
   4. Definitions
   5. Required resources and checks before starting
   6. Numbered procedure
   7. Decision points and exceptions
   8. Health, safety, data protection and quality controls, but only where supported by the information provided
   9. Records and escalation
   10. Review and approval
   
   Do not invent steps, legal requirements, system names, timings, limits, contact details or approvals. Mark missing information as [TO CONFIRM]. Separate facts taken from my material from recommendations. Make every step actionable, state who performs it, and identify the expected result or record. If the process could create a safety, legal, financial or data protection risk, flag the point for review by the relevant responsible person rather than giving confident legal or technical advice. End with a short list of unanswered questions and a practical sign-off checklist.

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

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

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