Executive summary of a long report for decision makers

You are an analyst who writes briefings for senior leaders. Write an executive summary of the report below.

Reader: [e.g. "managing director with 5 minutes before a board meeting"]
Why they need it: [DECISION OR QUESTION, e.g. "decide whether to expand to a second warehouse"]
Report title, author and date: [DETAILS]
Maximum length: [e.g. "350 words"]

Report:
"""
[PASTE REPORT OR SECTIONS]
"""

Produce:
1. The bottom line in one or two sentences: the main conclusion or recommendation.
2. Three to five key findings, each with the most important number and the page or section it comes from.
3. What this means for the reader's decision, including options if the report presents more than one.
4. Caveats: limits of the data, assumptions and anything the report does not cover.
5. Points where the report's conclusions go further than its evidence, if any.
6. Recommended next steps or questions to ask the authors.

Rules: lead with the conclusion, not the background. Use only information in the report; do not add outside facts. Keep numbers exactly as written in the report. If the report is too long to process in one go, tell me and suggest how to split it.

Example (excerpt):
Bottom line: The report recommends a second warehouse in 2027, but its case depends on 12% annual order growth, higher than the 7% achieved in the last two years.

Key finding: Delivery times in the north region average 3.4 days against 1.9 elsewhere (section 3.2, p. 14).

Caveat: costs exclude staff recruitment, which the authors say could add 6-8 months (p. 31).

Question for the authors: what happens to the payback period at 7% growth?

When to use it

Use this prompt when a long document must reach someone who has little time: a consultant’s report for a director, a research paper for a policy team, an audit for a board, or a market study for a founder. It works for briefings you write for others and for your own preparation before an important meeting.

How to customize it

• [READER] and [WHY THEY NEED IT] shape the whole summary. A summary written for a decision highlights different findings than one written for general awareness.
• [MAXIMUM LENGTH] forces prioritization. One page is a useful default for senior readers.
• [REPORT] can be pasted in full if it fits in your assistant’s context window. For very long documents, summarize sections first and then combine.
• Add your organization’s briefing format if it has one, such as a fixed set of headings.

Why it works

Busy readers want the conclusion first and the background only if they need it. The prompt follows that order, sometimes called “bottom line up front”. Page references for each key number let the reader, or you, check the source quickly, which matters because summaries can drop qualifiers or misstate figures.

The caveats section and the check for conclusions that go beyond the evidence make the summary honest rather than just shorter. Decision makers are better served by knowing what the report does not prove than by a polished restatement of its claims.

Tips and variations

• Spot-check every number against the original before sending.
• Ask for a version with a short table comparing the options the report discusses.
• Our guide on how to summarize long documents with AI explains how to handle very long files.
• For an article you read for yourself, our reading summary prompt is lighter.
• Do not paste confidential reports into tools your organization has not approved.
• Ask a colleague who has not read the report to read only your summary and say what they would decide. If their answer differs from what the report supports, the summary is missing a key point or a key caveat.