The Autocomplete Email

Beatriz has worked at the marketing agency for almost two years. She still isn't fully used to the new writing assistant. The program finishes her sentences before she does, which usually saves her time. This morning, though, it causes a real problem.

She is writing an email to a client who has been difficult all month. The assistant suggests a friendly closing line, and Beatriz clicks it without reading carefully. She hits send and goes to get coffee, feeling relieved that the email is finally done.

When she comes back, her manager is waiting by her desk. Henrik holds up his phone, and his face looks confused. "Did you mean to tell him his last proposal was boring?" he asks. Beatriz's stomach drops, and she opens the email to read it again, slower this time.

The assistant has replaced "detailed" with "boring" because the two words often appear near each other. It seemed harmless when she skimmed it, but now the sentence reads like an insult. If she doesn't fix this quickly, the client might cancel the whole contract.

"I can call him," Beatriz says, already reaching for her phone. Henrik nods. "Tell him it's a software glitch. It's actually true this time."

The call is awkward at first, but the client laughs once Beatriz explains what happened. He admits his own assistant has embarrassed him before. By the end of the call, he has agreed to keep the contract. He even asks which program she uses, so he can avoid it.

After she hangs up, Beatriz turns off the auto-suggest feature completely. She would rather type a little slower than trust a sentence she hasn't read twice. Henrik laughs and says he switched his off months ago. From now on, Beatriz reads every word before she clicks anything, no matter how long it takes.