Business Writing
Produces clear, correct business documents with AI and owns every claim in them.
You draft proposals, reports, briefings and emails for readers who need to decide or act. You use an AI assistant to extend your argument. You may face invented claims, flattened voice and missed reader needs.
The exam for Business Writing is not open yet. A skill opens once its questions are approved and tested. You can practise it free in the meantime.
What it measures
Whatever the skill, the exam rates your work in the same six areas of the Standard. Three are for the value you get from the assistant, and three for the control you keep. Each area gets one of 4 ratings (Emerging, Developing, Proficient, Accomplished). For Business Writing, a strong performance looks like this. What each area includes and excludes.
Value
What you get from the assistant: how far it takes the work, how well you brief it, and the piece you hand in.
- Reaching further
You use the reply to add reader questions, useful alternatives and missing evidence to the business document.
Using the assistant to produce work beyond what you could have produced alone, rather than the same work faster.
- Briefing the assistant
You brief the assistant with the reader, purpose, source facts, document form, length and required contents.
Giving the assistant the reader, purpose and source facts the work depends on, and the form, length and contents you need back.
- The finished piece
You turn the draft into an audience-ready document by editing its argument, structure, tone and original reasoning.
Turning the assistant's output into something a colleague could use: editing it, combining it and adding original thinking.
Control
What you keep in hand: checking its work, keeping information safe, and deciding what stays with a person.
- Checking its work
You check every business claim, figure and assumption against its source, then correct errors before delivery.
Checking the assistant's claims, figures and assumptions against the source before the work is used.
- Safety and confidentiality
You keep confidential client, commercial and organisational information out of the brief and finished document.
Handling confidential and personal data, seeing compliance, ethical and reputational risk, and declining unsafe requests.
- Knowing what to delegate
You decide which document sections the assistant drafts, which argument you keep, and who approves unresolved recommendations.
Deciding what to hand to the assistant and what to keep, and at what stakes, before any output exists.
What you do in the exam
Every skill of the Standard is examined the same way, at the same pass mark, in the Applied AI Badge. Two tasks with the assistant and two sets of questions, over 15 minutes. You do real work with an AI assistant beside you, hand in what you would send, then answer follow-up questions about your own work.
- 01
A proposal from supplied notes and source facts for a defined business decision.
- 02
A briefing note from findings and evidence, prioritised for a time-poor senior reader.
- 03
An executive email from bullet points, adapted for a cross-cultural professional audience.
These are the kinds of task the exam sets. Your exam draws its own from a bank the Examination Board has approved.
- Exam
- Applied AI Badge
- Price
- US$19
- Length
- 15 minutes
- Attempts
- One for each purchase, then a 7-day wait
- Practice
- Free, up to 50 sessions a day
What the badge certifies
What an employer reads
Passed an Institute exam in business writing. They briefed the assistant with audience, source facts and format, caught unsupported claims, and delivered audience-ready copy.
You earn it in one exam, never by finishing a course.
- Name on the certificate
- Applied AI Badge: Business Writing
- Who it is for
- Analysts, project managers and team leads who produce proposals, reports and executive correspondence.
- Valid for
- 2 years, then renew
- Verification
- Every badge has a public verification page an employer can open, and a place in the public register if you choose it.
- Marked by
- An AI examiner marks your work against a marking guide and quotes your own words as evidence. A person checks anything borderline.
Near it in the Standard
- Report Writing
Turns data and notes into a report with AI, with every figure traced to its source.
Practice only
- Presentations
Builds a presentation with AI that says one thing per slide and nothing the speaker cannot defend.
- Speaking & Pitching
Prepares and sharpens a pitch or talk with AI, then delivers it as their own.
- Facilitation
Designs and runs a session with AI's help and keeps the room, not the tool, in charge.
- Professional Communication
Communicates across channels with AI-assisted drafts that stay accurate, on tone and on record.
- Difficult Conversations
Prepares for a hard conversation with AI, without letting it script away the human judgement.
- Email & Correspondence
Drafts, checks and sends professional correspondence with AI, and owns every line of it.
Practice only
- Cross-Cultural Communication
Adapts messages across cultures and languages with AI, and catches what the tool gets wrong.
Everything in Communications, including the level exams that name the whole function.
Practise it before you pay for it
Practice is free (up to 50 sessions a day) and shaped like the exam, with a coach that tells you what to change. It never counts towards a credential, and an exercise you practised is kept out of your exam.
Want to learn it first? AI+ Business Writing covers this skill. No book is required to pass.