- AI adoption among administrative professionals nearly tripled in two years - from 26% in 2024 to about 77% in 2026.
- The time savings are concrete: EAs report tasks that used to take hours (like meeting notes) now taking under five minutes.
- AI absorbs the routine - inbox, calendar, notes, travel, drafts - which elevates the EA role toward the strategic, judgment work only a person can do.
- There's a proficiency gap worth closing: 77% use AI, but only 47% feel confident integrating it into their workflow. That gap is the opportunity.
The executive assistant role is being reshaped by AI faster than almost any other - and, counterintuitively, in a way that makes the human more valuable, not less. The direct answer: AI absorbs the high-volume routine admin an EA handles - inbox triage, scheduling, notes, travel, drafts - which frees the assistant to do the anticipatory, strategic, judgment-heavy work that actually makes them a force multiplier for an executive.
Adoption nearly tripled
The shift is steep: AI adoption among administrative professionals jumped from 26% in 2024 to about 77% in 2026 - nearly tripling in two years. For a role built on managing information and logistics, AI arrived as a near-perfect fit. Assistants describe the change concretely: work that used to take hours - taking and organizing meeting notes, for instance - now gets done in under five minutes.
Where AI plugs into an EA's day
Inbox and communication. Triaging, drafting replies, and summarizing long threads - a huge share of an assistant's day, compressed.
Calendar and scheduling. Finding times, coordinating across people, handling the reschedules - the logistics grind, automated.
Notes and follow-ups. Meeting summaries and action items captured automatically instead of typed up after.
Travel and prep. Itineraries, briefing docs, and meeting prep assembled fast.
Each of these is exactly the kind of high-volume, routine work that used to fill an EA's calendar and leave little room for anything higher-leverage.
The counterintuitive part: the role gets more strategic
Here's the reframe. When AI absorbs the routine logistics, what's left is the work that actually distinguishes a great assistant: anticipating what the executive needs before they ask, managing relationships and priorities, exercising judgment about what matters and what can wait, and being a genuine thought partner. Those are precisely the things AI can't do - they require context, discretion, and human judgment. So AI doesn't diminish the EA role; it strips away the routine and leaves the strategic core. The 2026 data reflects this: the role is becoming more strategic, not less relevant. The assistants who thrive treat AI as their own assistant - delegating the routine so they can operate at a higher level.
The gap worth closing
One honest note: while 77% of admins use AI, only 47% feel confident actually integrating it into their workflow. That gap between using AI casually and using it deliberately is exactly where an assistant can pull ahead - becoming the person who's genuinely fluent, not just dabbling. Building that fluency is a practical skill, which is the MakerSquare premise. Our use cases show what going from casual use to building real tools looks like.
The best assistants were never just doing the logistics. AI finally takes that part, so they can do the rest.
MakerSquare is a 2-week in-person AI builder program in Austin, TX where operators go from casual AI use to genuine fluency - building the tools that free them for higher-level work. See what two weeks of hands-on building looks like.