Matt Martin introduces Clockwise AI, a first-of-its-kind conversational calendar assistant
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant concept; it’s here and now, shaping our daily work and our roles, including that of executive support professionals.
I’m the CEO of Clockwise, a calendar management tool that optimizes team schedules to create more time for whatever matters most in the workday. We’ve spent years building a time orchestration platform, and today executive support professionals across 15,000+ companies including Asana, Atlassian, Etsy, Reddit, Uber, and Zoom use Clockwise to take the work out of scheduling.
At first blush, tools like ours might seem like an incremental improvement for scheduling. In reality, they signify the early stages of a larger, transformative journey that will redefine the role of executive support professionals.
Imagine if technology could equip everyone with an assistant to completely delegate calendar management to – and not just the VPs and C-levels, but Executive Assistants themselves. With the recent advancements in Large Language Models and natural language processing, AI has a new potential to power the most human-like scheduling experience that’s ever existed.
AI is allowing professionals from all industries to focus more on what makes us inherently human: our ability to strategize, connect, empathize, and create. At Clockwise we believe that AI should always accelerate human intent and that these technologies will be most successful in instances where they enhance what humans can accomplish on their own. In the productivity tool space, AI will play a unique role by not necessarily replacing jobs, but instead making people more effective at their jobs and increasing net outputs.
The future of executive support professionals lies in their ability to adapt and capitalize on the advantages AI tools offer. As these technologies become better at handling support tasks, Executive Assistants will be enabled to delegate administrative work, opening up more opportunities for them to contribute to higher-value work.
AI-driven tools will enable executive support professionals to navigate this transition seamlessly. But utilizing AI isn’t just about accepting new technology; it’s about embracing a new mindset. The best Executive Assistants will be those who have the curiosity to learn and see the additive value AI can bring to their daily work. Many Executive Assistants already trust Clockwise to handle the necessary, yet time-consuming, task of calendar management – which frees up space for them to participate in larger strategic initiatives, become active contributors to their organization’s decision-making processes, and expand their scope of work beyond traditional scheduling boundaries.
Here are three ways executive support professionals can use Clockwise in their jobs today:
Delegate Scheduling
Clockwise AI is a first-of-its-kind conversational calendar assistant that makes it easy and fast for executive support professionals to tackle scheduling requests, find time in the day even when it doesn’t appear free on the calendar, and coordinate the most complex meetings across multiple calendars. By inputting a natural language command, such as “Schedule a team meeting on Tuesday,” Clockwise will take into account each team member’s individual calendar preferences and availability to propose the optimal time slots. This saves executive support professionals from the painstaking task of manually comparing and aligning everyone’s calendars.
Handle Last-Minute Changes Efficiently
With its smart schedule-by-moving capabilities, Clockwise can make space for changing priorities and urgent meetings by moving conflicts and adjusting impacted meetings. For example, if an unforeseen circumstance arises, an executive support professional can instruct Clockwise to “clear the afternoon,” and Clockwise will automatically propose adjustments to the impacted meetings. Once approved, Clockwise handles all the work of rescheduling meetings, communicating changes, and updating calendar events for all attendees. This greatly reduces the stress and complexity of managing last-minute changes.
Maximize Focus Time
Clockwise understands the importance of uninterrupted work periods and will automatically block dedicated blocks of time for deep work. Executive support professionals can leverage this feature to ensure that their executives have sufficient ‘focus time’ blocked off in their schedules for deep work. As schedules change throughout the week, Clockwise will intelligently arrange meetings to minimize a fragmented schedule and protect these blocks from being double-booked. This ensures that executive support professionals are not only managing their executives’ time but also enhancing their productivity.
I can confidently say that we are just scratching the surface of what AI can do. AI will not only make executive support professionals more effective at their jobs; it will fundamentally expand what it means to provide meaningful support. The impending era of AI will usher in unprecedented efficiency and redefine roles across the board, ushering in a new age of work that is more strategic, creative, and rewarding. For professionals willing to embrace this change, the future is bright indeed.
