AI Use Case: Email Triage

As AI integrates more into the work apps we regularly use, we can add a true assistant to work flows. The Rundown offers some quick setup tips. They recommend Claude and until Gemini catches up a bit, if you're comfortable allowing that access it might be best to use it.

1. Open Claude with Gmail access and run one triage session on your unread inbox. The goal is to show Claude what matters before automating the process

2. Prompt: “Generate an interactive email triage report for the last 24 hours. Sort each email into exactly one of these buckets: Needs response, Needs attention, Archive, Archive and unsubscribe. For each email, include the sender, subject, a one-line reason for the category, a direct link to the email, and the item number. Add labels to the approved emails”

3. Review, correct misfires, and prompt: Turn this workflow into a recurring task prompt for my inbox, with my common senders, archive, and unsubscribe rules

4. Save that prompt as a Claude Cowork scheduled task so it can run every morning without rebuilding the logic

Pro tip: Set up Gmail rules around the labels Claude adds. It can apply labels through the connector, so “Needs Response” and “Needs Attention” can be auto-starred, and Archive emails can be auto-archived.

A couple of notes:

(1) No deletion and no response, ensures less of a chance of an error.

(2) Step 3 enables you to tweak as you see fit.

(3) Labelling is a very powerful organizational tool, especially if you have multiple forwarding addresses and something worth setting up for all leaders.