Long reports, policies and manuals are where an AI assistant saves the most time, and where it is easiest to trust it too much. The templates below are our own and work in any assistant, such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini. Results vary, and an AI review is a first pass, not a sign-off.
Five rules
- Give a checklist, not “find problems”. Name what to look for: inconsistent numbers, missing sections, unclear owners, dates that clash.
- Ask for quotes and locations. Every flagged issue should include the exact sentence and page or section, so you can check it in seconds.
- Separate found from guessed. Ask the model to label each item “stated in the document” or “my inference”.
- Work in chunks. For very long files, review one section at a time and then ask for a cross-section consistency pass.
- Verify before acting. Treat each item as a lead. For legal, medical or financial documents, a qualified person must review.
Template: checklist review
You are reviewing the attached document for [purpose].
Check only these items: [list 4-6 checks].
For each issue give: location, the exact quote, why it is a problem, and a suggested fix.
Label each as "stated" or "inference". If you find nothing for a check, say so.
Do not rewrite the document.Template: consistency pass
Here are my notes from reviewing sections 1-6.
List any facts, figures or definitions that conflict between sections, quoting both places.Template: summary for a busy reader
Summarise the document in 5 bullets for [audience]. Then list 3 questions the document does not answer.Check the result
Spot-check at least three flagged items against the source, and look for things the model missed by reading one section yourself. For the wider habit of turning a prompt that works into a repeatable routine, see our AI prompt workflow and how to write an Agent Skill. For a news example of document review at scale, see Anthropic’s drug development report, which describes a manufacturing-documentation review as Anthropic’s own account.
Also see the GPT-6.1 Terra summary for how OpenAI describes its visual reasoning model.
To learn from a document rather than review it, see our study prompts.