Home · Personal · Work & Career · Workplace writing

YES

As of 13 August 2026, AI can write your out-of-office message.

Most people should do this themselves; the prompt is on this page.

Can you do it?

2 minutesto a draft.

5 minutesto something you’d act on.

Cost, all in£0

Skill needednone

Who has to check ityou

What the alternative costsA purpose-built alternative is Grammarly, an AI writing assistant for grammar, tone and rewrites wherever you type.

If this goes wrong: the reply contains a wrong date or contact detail, and you can correct it before or after someone receives it.

What to actually do

  1. Do it yourself

    The route this page recommends

    A chat interface, no skill needed, and roughly 5 minutes until you can act on the result.

    How to actually do it

    1. Open your work calendar and note the exact dates you will be away, the date you return, and whether you will check email.
    2. Gather the approved name, role and email address of any colleague who should handle urgent queries, or decide that no alternative contact should be listed.
    3. Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and replace every bracketed slot with your own information.
    4. Compare the drafted subject and message against your calendar and workplace contact details, checking every date, name, email address and statement about checking email.
    5. Open your work email settings, paste the checked subject and message into the out-of-office section, set the correct active period, and save it.

    Prompt

    Write a concise out-of-office message for my work email using only the facts below. Invent nothing and do not add personal information. State that I am away from [START DATE] until [END DATE], that I will return on [RETURN DATE], and that I will [CHECK EMAIL occasionally / NOT CHECK EMAIL]. If people should contact someone else, include [ALTERNATIVE CONTACT NAME, ROLE AND EMAIL]. If there is no alternative contact, say that I will reply when I return. Use a professional, friendly UK workplace tone. Do not explain the draft. Give me one subject line and one message ready to paste.

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

  2. Use a tool built for this

    Second choice

  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.

What it gets wrong

  • AI cannot know your employer's policy on sharing colleague contact details.
  • AI cannot choose the right level of personal detail for your workplace relationships.
  • AI cannot know whether a colleague has agreed to receive urgent queries.
  • AI cannot confirm that your email system's dates and time settings match the wording.
  • AI defaults to a generic tone unless you specify how formal or friendly the message should be.

Even on a YES, the friction has a name: taste and context depth.

How we scored this

Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.

AxisScore (0–2)
Output2
Inputs2
Verification2
Liability2
Effort delta2
Total10 / 10

The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.

FAQ

Can ChatGPT write my out-of-office message?
Yes. Give it your absence dates, return date, email-checking arrangements and any approved alternative contact, then check every detail before pasting the message into your work email.
What should I include in an out-of-office message?
Include when you are away, when you will return, whether you will check messages and who to contact for urgent matters. Do not include personal details or a colleague's contact information unless your workplace permits it.
How do I make an AI out-of-office message sound professional?
Ask for a concise, friendly UK workplace tone and tell the model not to invent facts. Read it aloud once, remove unnecessary personal detail and check that the wording matches your actual availability.
Can AI set my out-of-office reply?
No. AI can draft the wording, but you normally need to open your email settings, enter the active dates and save the reply yourself. Check the saved settings because the message and the activation period are separate.

Nearby answers

All Workplace writing rulings

Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.

The newsletter

AI news, new answers and product picks, straight to your inbox.