Catch-up — Test the Document Handoff, Not Just the Draft
A generated document is only useful when the next person can inspect and continue the work.
- OpenAI announced ChatGPT for Word on 17 September, with drafting, summarization, revision, heading, and formatting tasks available from a sidebar.
- OpenAI says the Word add-in is available across ChatGPT plans, while plan token limits and shared usage allowances still apply.
Catch-up retrospective covering sources published 12 September–16 September 2026. This is not a backdated daily edition; it extracts a product-model decision from that source window.
Putting generation inside the document removes copying, not ambiguity. A polished draft can still hide missing sources, open decisions, or instructions the next editor cannot recover.
Choose one recurring document and define its handoff contract: required sources, sections, open questions, owner, and final review. Test whether another person can continue from the document without reading the chat.
Put it to work 20 minutes
A handoff-ready document template
Give a colleague one AI-assisted document without its chat. Ask them to name the sources, unresolved decisions, and next action; then repair the template where they get stuck.
See a worked example
Use a low-risk working document. This exercise tests handoff clarity, not the quality of a specific model or plan.
- Handoff contract
- Link the research notes, flag the undecided recommendation, name the editor, and state the review deadline.
- Cold review
- They could revise the structure but could not tell which market claim needed verification.
- Template repair
- Add a claim table with source, confidence, and reviewer.
Your turn
List what must travel with the draft.
Ask someone without the chat to continue the work.
Add the smallest field that fixes the gap.
Your draft stays in this browser. No account needed.
For disposable personal drafts, a detailed handoff contract is needless overhead. Use it when the document crosses people, decisions, or systems.
OpenAI’s release notes directly describe the Word integration and availability; the handoff pattern is an editorial recommendation to test.
Could a new editor continue the document accurately without the original conversation?
Watch: Questions asked during handoff · Missing sources or decisions found in reviewKeep Going