How to Use ChatGPT for Executive Research and Briefing Preparation

Before a meeting with a potential partner, investor, or customer, use ChatGPT to build a rapid background brief. Ask: 'Give me a briefing on [Company Name]: their business model, key products, recent strategic moves, major competitors, and any publicly known challenges or controversies. Keep it to one page for an executive who has 10 minutes.'

For sector context: 'What are the three biggest challenges facing the [sector] sector in the UK over the next 18 months?' or 'What are the main regulatory developments affecting [sector] that a non-executive director should understand?'

Important caveat: ChatGPT's knowledge has a training cutoff, and recent events (last 6-12 months) may not be reflected. For the latest developments, use ChatGPT's web browsing feature (GPT-4o with browsing enabled) or complement ChatGPT research with a quick check of recent news. Always verify material facts before using them in consequential decisions.

For document analysis, paste the document text directly into ChatGPT (or use the file upload feature for PDFs) and ask targeted questions.

For a financial report: 'Based on this annual report, what are the three most significant risks to the company's performance over the next year? Support each with specific evidence from the report.'

For a strategy document: 'What assumptions underpin this strategy that might not hold? What is not addressed in this document that a board would want to know?'

For a proposal or business case: 'Is the financial model in this proposal internally consistent? What key sensitivities should the board test?'

The quality of the analysis depends heavily on the quality of your questions. Vague questions produce generic answers; specific analytical questions produce targeted, useful responses.

If board papers have been shared as PDF documents, you can upload them to ChatGPT (GPT-4 with file analysis) and ask preparation questions before the meeting.

Useful pre-meeting prompts: 'What are the three most important decisions being asked of the board in these papers?' and 'What questions should a non-executive director ask about [specific agenda item]?' and 'Are there any gaps or inconsistencies between the risk section and the financial projections in these papers?'

ChatGPT can also help you prepare your own contributions. If you are presenting at the board, ask: 'Here is my draft presentation. What questions is the board most likely to ask, and how should I prepare to answer them?' This rehearsal function is one of ChatGPT's most underused executive applications.

ChatGPT's Deep Research feature (available on ChatGPT Pro) conducts multi-step web research on a topic, synthesises findings from multiple sources, and produces a cited research report. For complex background research (understanding a new market, a regulatory change, or a competitor's strategy), Deep Research produces substantially more thorough outputs than standard prompting.

Deep Research takes 5-15 minutes to complete and produces a structured report with source citations. Review the sources: not all web sources are reliable, and ChatGPT does not apply editorial judgement to the quality of its sources. The synthesis is valuable; the source verification is your responsibility.

For urgent preparation tasks, standard ChatGPT with targeted prompts is faster. For complex background research where thoroughness matters more than speed, Deep Research is worth the wait.