For managers
Best AI for Managers
Management work is spread across meetings, planning, and decisions, so the right tool depends on which part of the job you are trying to make easier. Here is a breakdown by task rather than a single ranked list.
Meetings & communication
Otter.ai
Meeting assistant
Best for: Automatic transcription and summaries of recurring meetings
Good for managers who run a lot of 1:1s or team syncs and want a searchable record without manual note-taking.
Fathom
Meeting assistant
Best for: Free meeting recording with action-item extraction
Pulls out decisions and follow-ups automatically, useful for keeping a team accountable between meetings.
ChatGPT
General assistant
Best for: Drafting messages, feedback, and performance reviews
Helpful for a first draft of a difficult message, though tone and specifics still need a manager's own edit.
Planning & organization
Claude
General assistant
Best for: Turning a messy set of notes into a structured plan or SOP
Handles longer documents well, which suits turning meeting notes or a brain dump into something the team can follow.
Zapier
Automation platform
Best for: Connecting existing tools so status updates flow automatically
Best suited to managers who already have tools (spreadsheets, forms, Slack) they want talking to each other, rather than adding a new tool.
Research & decision support
Perplexity
AI search
Best for: Quickly getting up to speed on a topic before a decision
Citations make it easier to sanity-check a summary before it goes into a recommendation to leadership.
NotebookLM
Document assistant
Best for: Reviewing a stack of reports or past project documents
Keeps answers grounded in the specific documents uploaded, which matters when referencing internal material.
Building the underlying skill
Learn Business AI(this site)
Course
Best for: Managers who want to build judgment about when and how to use these tools
Covers prompting, delegation to AI, and setting team-level norms for AI use, rather than teaching any one tool in isolation.
Not sure where to start? Try the AI Readiness Assessment, a free tool that scores where your team stands today and flags the next areas to focus on.