{"id":390730,"date":"2025-09-02T01:59:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T01:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/390730\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T01:59:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T01:59:14","slug":"will-ai-finally-kill-off-the-office-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/390730\/","title":{"rendered":"Will AI finally kill off the office secretary?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades they have been the linchpins that kept businesses big and small running smoothly the world over, but is outsourcing and artificial intelligence about to end the quiet reign of the office secretary?<\/p>\n

From M\u2019s Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films to Edith Nina \u201cJo\u201d Sturdee, Sir Winston Churchill\u2019s principal private secretary who typed up his famous Iron Curtain speech, secretaries have played an often silent but powerful role at the heart of business, politics and the civil service. <\/p>\n

But their numbers are steadily declining. First executives \u2014 finally \u2014 learnt how to type their own correspondence. Now companies are increasingly looking to make cost savings by cutting in-house secretaries in favour of outsourcing administrative tasks to cheaper locations such as India and Africa, and turning to AI<\/a> to take on diary management and travel bookings.<\/p>\n

\"Winston<\/p>\n

Sir Winston Churchill giving his Iron Curtain speech, which was typed by his secretary Edith Nina \u201cJo\u201d Sturdee<\/p>\n

AP:ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/p>\n

Last week Grant Thornton, the accountancy and professional services firm, became the latest company to cut almost all of its UK-based secretaries shortly after its 250 partners each collected an average payout of \u00a3682,000, following the sale of a majority stake<\/a> to the private equity firm Cinven this year. <\/p>\n

A spokesman for Grant Thornton UK said: \u201cLike all professional service firms, we continually evolve delivery models. Whilst a small number of people have left the firm, these decisions were made independent of our transaction with Cinven in response to the evolving needs of the business. This has always been part of how we work \u2014 and this moment is no exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rival accountancy firm Deloitte cut about 500 secretaries<\/a> in 2021 while several leading law firms have also cut secretarial jobs, including Linklaters, Dechert and Reed Smith. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not innovation. This is not digital transformation. This is short-term cost-cutting dressed up as progress,\u201d Lucy Brazier, founder of Executive Support Magazine, said. \u201cIt is exactly what happens when leadership fails to understand the true value of the administrative function.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brazier, who was awarded an OBE for services to office professionals in 2021, said she had previously worked with Grant Thorton on the structure and training of its assistants. \u201cThe impact [they had] was clear,\u201d she said. \u201cAssistants were giving partners back around a quarter of their time. Now take the collective salaries of those partners and multiply them by 25 per cent. Tell me again this move is saving money. And that\u2019s before you count the additional revenue generated with the time assistants freed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brazier said company leaders \u201ccompletely misunderstand\u201d what secretaries actually do. \u201cA proactive assistant doesn\u2019t just give back time \u2014 they anticipate risk, guard relationships, provide continuity and create bandwidth for leaders to lead. You don\u2019t get that from a low-cost offshore model. And you certainly don\u2019t get it from AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

She called on secretaries and executive assistants across the country to \u201cprove, every single day, that you are infrastructure, not overhead. The future of administration is being decided in rooms you are not in \u2014 unless you fight to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carl Benedikt Frey, professor of AI & Work at the Oxford University\u2019s Internet Institute, said the role of the secretary had always evolved with technology and this was the latest adaptation. <\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the day there were banks and banks of typists,\u201d he said. \u201cThen with the introduction of computers they became more office managers and organisers. But now you can ask AI to manage calendars and find flights, and it makes sense to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Business live: the latest on companies, markets and economics<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Frey said the number of secretaries in the workplace was naturally decreasing as \u201cpeople can do more of these tasks for themselves\u201d. However, he did not expect the number of secretaries to drop to zero. \u201cWe will still need people physically in the office to manage people and to help co-ordinate the AI to make sure people are using it efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n

The secretaries of tomorrow will be doing \u201cmuch more high-level skilled work\u201d, he added. \u201cThe job has undergone an extraordinary evolution. If you read the job description of today and compare it to a decade ago, it\u2019s unrecognisable. And AI will supercharge that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Randall Peterson, director of the Leadership Institute at London Business School, said executives\u2019 reliance on secretaries has been waning since the 1990s as bosses became more tech-literate. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt really picked up pace during the pandemic,\u201d he said. \u201cAs businesses couldn\u2019t have secretaries \u2018in the room\u2019 they learnt that they don\u2019t need them in the room. Roles got outsourced to cheaper countries and now AI is capable of doing many of the traditional secretarial functions.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, for companies there was the risk of a false economy. \u201cIf managers have to spend more of their time accessing the new systems, it could end up costing the company more in lost executive time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Personal assistants may have to take on new skillsets<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

Victoria Rabin, founder and chief executive of the Executive Assistants Organisation (EAO), which trains future assistants, said managers were increasingly being told to \u201creplace your EA with AI\u201d \u2014 but there\u2019s nothing that can replace that relationship between an executive and their assistant.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years EAs have become game-changers in enforcing the efficiency and productivity of today\u2019s executives. They are the most important asset an executive can have. They provide their leaders the tools required to be 100 per cent focused on the bigger picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabin said the skillset executive assistants require is rapidly evolving and they now fulfil more of a problem-solver role than simply administration. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a focus on communication skills, time management, project management, technology and AI, stress management and conflict management and leadership training,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are some skills that cannot be taught that the role requires: being inherently nurturing, meticulous, empathetic, thick-skinned and extremely resourceful. It takes a certain breed of individual to be an executive assistant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rabin, who was born in Chelmsford, Essex, but now lives and works in San Diego, California, said the term secretary was not used in the US as \u201cthey are more than that \u2014 they really run the lives of their executives. They are partners. They know them as intuitively as their wives or husbands do.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades they have been the linchpins that kept businesses big and small running smoothly the world over,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-390730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115132233375741898","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}