Guide Library

Week 3 · Guide 6 of 6

Foundations

Work Out What Changed Between Two Versions

Field Guide

  • 25–40 minGuided walkthrough

When a document you rely on gets a new version, your agent can write a change brief, a short list of what changed. You check each change in both versions, then decide what it means for you.

You’ll leave with

A checked change brief showing which changes in a document you use affect your task.

What You Need for This Guide

  • Two versions of a document you rely on, or only the new one.
  • Your approved AI tool.
  • My Agent Files, or another folder you can find again.

Choose the tool you’re allowed to use

Your approved tool

The tool your company approved.

Pick your approved tool above to see the steps and screenshots for it.

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5 steps · At your own pace
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Standard Data rules for AI at work

Data Rules

Data rules for AI at work

Check with your IT Team before you paste any work data into an AI tool. Avoid names, account numbers, customer data, or anything sensitive without explicit permission from IT. If you aren't sure, redact anything sensitive and replace it with generic information. AI makes mistakes, make sure to fact check your agents outputs even if they sound right.

Before you start

  • Check with your IT teamAsk what your company allows before you put anything from work into an AI tool. Your company policy is the one that counts, and it is the one this library cannot see.
  • Use the tool your company approvedChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Gemini are all covered here. Use the one your company approved, not the one you like best.
  • Sign in with your work accountA work account keeps your chats inside the agreement your company signed. A personal account in the same product sits outside it.
  • Connected appsAn email or file connection your IT team approved can read the names and addresses in what it opens. Everything else under “Never put this into an AI tool” still applies.
  • No approved account yetFollow the steps with made-up example text, or on paper, until IT gives you one.

Never put this into an AI tool

  • Customer or personal detailsNo names, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses or account numbers. That covers colleagues as well as customers.
  • Regulated recordsHealth, financial, HR and legal records stay in the systems built to hold them, unless IT has told you in writing that this tool may see them.
  • Passwords, keys and access codesNo credentials of any kind, yours or anyone else’s, and nothing that grants access to a system.
  • Anything under an NDA or not yet publicUnreleased plans, contracts, pricing and source code need clearance before they go near a chat window.
  • Anything your company policy prohibitsYour company’s rules win over anything in this library. If policy keeps something out of AI tools, it stays out, whatever a guide suggests.

Do this instead

  • Swap real details for placeholdersWrite “Customer A”, “[client name]”, “$X”. You get the same quality of answer, and you put the real details back yourself.
  • Describe the situation rather than pasting the documentMost of what an agent needs is the shape of the problem, not the file it arrived in.
  • Trim a file before you upload or paste itTake out the identifying columns and pages first, or work from a short extract.

Check the answer before you use it

  • Read it as if a colleague had drafted itAn agent states wrong things with complete confidence. Your name goes on the work, so the check is yours.
  • Say where the agent helpedFollow your company rule on disclosing AI assistance, especially in client-facing or formal work.

When you are not sure

  • Ask before you paste or upload, not afterA question to your IT team takes a minute. Cleaning up after a data incident takes a great deal longer.
  • When in doubt, leave it outIf you would not put it in an email to someone outside the company, keep it out of the chat.

On this guide

  • Sharing a change briefIf you share your change brief, say it is your own reading, and point people to the new version and its owner.
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Step

Choose the document and gather both versions

  1. Pick a document you work from that has a new version, such as:

    • An updated expense or travel policy
    • A revised procedure or program guideline
    • At home, a club's new rules

    Nothing in mind? Look for a recent update email. Or, with an , send the prompt below in a new chat with your profile attached or pasted, or in its Project or Notebook. Set the bracketed line to a document I rely on that has a new version. Answer its questions, then pick one you know has a new version.

    Find a task or decision
    Using my Agent Profile and my answers, help me choose one small task to try or decision to think through. If my profile is missing from this conversation, ask me to attach or paste it before continuing. Do not assume I have a pending task or decision, or that it relates to a project in my profile.

What I'm looking for: [a task to try or a decision to make]

For now, help me identify and describe what I want to work on. Do not carry out the task, compare the decision's options, decide for me, or make a plan.

Ask me up to three short questions, one at a time, about work I need to get done or a choice I expect to face. If nothing is pending, ask about a recurring task or choice.

With each question:
- Offer two or three short suggested answers based on my role, responsibilities, priorities, or projects in my Agent Profile.
- Write these options directly in your response as a numbered list.
- Present them as possibilities for me to confirm, not tasks or decisions you assume I have.
- Include “Something else / none of these.”
- Let me choose a number, combine options, or answer in my own words.

Wait for each answer before continuing. Use my answer to shape the next question, and stop asking as soon as we have a clear task or decision I want to work on.

If we still have several possibilities, suggest up to three specific tasks or decisions of the kind I'm looking for, grounded in my profile and answers. Show them as a numbered list. Describe each in a sentence or two, including what I would give you, what you could help me produce or compare, and what I would still need to check or decide myself. Keep them small enough for me to try. Include “Something else / none of these” alongside those choices. Ask which one I want to work on, and wait for my choice.

Once I choose, write one sentence in my voice naming only the task I selected or the decision I want to think through. Use the details I confirmed in my answers; do not add details from my profile to the description unless I confirmed their connection to this task or decision. Omit details I have not provided rather than making a statement about them. For a decision, describe what needs to be decided without making the decision.

Return that description in one copyable code block. Include only the selected task or decision description. Then stop and wait for my next prompt.

If I have already named a clear task or decision I want to use, skip the questions and options and give me that description directly.

Use only facts in my profile and answers. Do not invent details, commitments or authority. If details should not be shared, let me describe the general pattern instead, and keep missing details uncertain.

  2. Find both versions. For a long document, take the same sections from each, the ones your task needs.

  3. Only have the new version? Look for the earlier one in an older email or saved copy, or ask the document's owner, the team or person who issues it. Otherwise, write five to ten lines on how you do the task today: the steps, amounts, deadlines and forms.

  4. Check the data rules before you paste or attach anything, including your notes. Replace any detail that has to come out with the same placeholder in both versions.

  5. Write one line on what you use the document for, such as “I book travel for a team of six.”

Step

Ask your agent for a change brief

  1. Open a new chat, paste the prompt below, fill in its bracketed lines and send it. If no detail has to come out, you can attach two short files instead.

    Compare two versions of a document
    Download
    Compare the two versions of one document below and write me a change brief. Work only from these two texts and the sections I name. Do not add anything from memory or other sources, and do not guess why something changed. If you can't see both versions, if either END line is missing, or if one version looks cut off, tell me and stop.

My task: [a sentence or two on what you use this document for]

Sections compared: [the sections you took from each version, or write: whole document]

OLDER VERSION: [its title and date or version number]
[paste the older version or the sections you need, or write the attached file's name]
END OF OLDER VERSION

NEWER VERSION: [its title and date or version number]
[paste the same sections from the newer version, or write the attached file's name]
END OF NEWER VERSION

Write the brief under these six headings. Number the items in one sequence through the whole brief, without restarting under each heading, so I can refer to any item by its number.

- Changed: anything whose meaning is different. For each, name the section, then quote the older words and the newer words exactly as written.
- Added or removed: text that appears in only one version, quoted, with its section and which version has it.
- Reworded only: the same meaning in different words, with both quotes. If a number, date, deadline, amount, condition, role, form, or a word such as must, should, may, only or unless differs, list it under Changed instead.
- Stayed the same: the main points that didn't change, briefly, starting with any my task depends on.
- Affects my task: which items under Changed or Added or removed could change what I do, when, how much or who I send things to, and why.
- Unclear: anything you couldn't compare, and any change whose meaning I should confirm with the document's owner.

Quote exactly. If you aren't sure two passages match, say so instead of guessing. Leave out changes in layout, numbering and formatting that don't change the meaning.

  2. Comparing with your notes? Use this prompt in a new chat instead.

    Compare a new version with my notes
    I have the new version of a document I rely on, but not the older one. Compare the new version below with my notes on how I do this task today. Work only from these two texts and the sections I name. Do not guess what the older version said, and do not describe any difference as a change to the document. If you can't see both texts, if either END line is missing, or if the new version looks cut off, tell me and stop.

Start the result with this title: Compared with my notes, not with the older version

My task: [a sentence or two on what you use this document for]

Sections compared: [the sections you took from the new version, or write: whole document]

MY NOTES ON HOW I DO IT TODAY:
[five to ten lines: the steps, amounts, deadlines, forms and the role or office you send things to]
END OF MY NOTES

NEW VERSION: [its title and date or version number]
[paste the new version, or the sections you need]
END OF NEW VERSION

Write the result under these six headings. Number the items in one sequence through the whole result, without restarting under each heading, so I can refer to any item by its number.

- Different from my notes: for each, quote my note, then quote the new version exactly.
- Not in my notes: anything in the new version that bears on my task and my notes don't mention, quoted.
- Not in the new version: anything in my notes that the sections I pasted from the new version don't cover.
- Matches my notes: the points the new version confirms, each with the whole sentence it comes from, quoted. If that sentence adds or changes a number, date, deadline, amount, condition, role, form, or a word such as must, should, may, only or unless, list it under Different from my notes instead.
- Affects my task: which items under Different from my notes, Not in my notes or Not in the new version could change what I do, when, how much or who I send things to, and why.
- To confirm: questions for the document's owner about the differences that matter for my task, such as work I started the old way or wording that could mean more than one thing.

Quote exactly. If you aren't sure a note and a passage are about the same thing, say so instead of guessing.

  3. The reply lists numbered items under six headings, each change quoted. If it stops because a version looks cut off, or your message is too long to send, start a new chat with fewer sections.

  4. Copy the reply into a new file in My Agent Files or beside your own copy of the document. Start it with a line naming the two texts, such as Travel policy, March 2025 compared with January 2026 or Travel policy, January 2026 compared with my notes, and name the file to match.

Step

Check every change in both versions

An agent's comparison can go wrong in ways that look right, and asking whether it's sure won't catch it.

  1. For every quote in your brief, search the text it came from for a few of its words. Paired quotes should be about the same thing, and a table number should sit in the same row and column. Search the whole other version, including sections you didn't paste, for each item under Added or removed. If it turns up elsewhere, delete the item, or move it to Changed if it reads differently. Type Checked beside each item that holds up, and confirm the Stayed the same points your task needs.

    If you used notes, read Different from my notes as Changed, Not in the new version as Added or removed and Matches my notes as Reworded only, and skip the side-by-side prompt.

  2. Fix or delete any item that doesn't hold up. Or tell the agent in the same chat what the version says, ask it to correct that item only, and check its correction before you copy it in.

  3. Read each item under Reworded only. If a number, date, amount, condition, role or form differs, or a word such as must, may or only, it's a change. Move it to Changed and check it.

  4. To find what the agent missed, send the prompt below in the same chat. If its closing Not in the brief line is missing, ask for the rest. Check each new difference in both versions before you add it.

    List the details side by side
    Download
    Go back to the two texts I gave you earlier in this chat. In the sections below, list every number, date, deadline, amount, role or office, form or document name, and every sentence containing must, should, may, only, unless or except, as each text has it.

Sections: [name the sections your task depends on]

Put each item side by side: the wording in the first text, the wording in the second text, and same or different. Quote exactly. If an item appears in only one text, say which. Do not summarize or explain. List every item, even when it's the same in both, and do not group items as the same. If you can't fit them all, stop after a whole section and say which sections are left. Write the closing line below only after the last section.

End with a line that starts "Not in the brief:" and lists each difference that isn't already in the brief you wrote, or says "none in these sections".

Step

Decide what each change means for your task

The agent's Affects my task section knows only your task line, so it can be wrong. Under each checked item in your brief, write one of these:

  • Affects my task: what you'll do differently, and from when.
  • Doesn't affect me: keep it, to show you looked.
  • Confirm with the owner: it could mean more than one thing, or it's unclear when it starts or whether it covers work under way.

List your questions for the owner at the end of your brief, quoting the words each is about.

Step

Keep this version for next time

Save a dated copy of the new version beside your brief. Next time, it's your older version.

Download the Compare two versions of a document and List the details side by side prompts into the same folder. Edit them to name the details that matter to you, and use them when a document you rely on changes again.

Work Out What Changed Between Two Versions

Confirm your result

Confirm the outcomes below to finish this guide.

Final checks

You have a saved change brief naming the two texts you compared, and you checked every item against both of them.

You can say which changes affect your task and what you'll do differently, with any questions listed for the document's owner.

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