Do we have a record of anyone asking what an Aes Sedai actually does in the books? I seem to remember Moiraine explaining what it means to be an Aes Sedai to Egwene.
But I wonder what Novices are told when they ask this? All this training, I gain control of Saidar, then what? Just fancy dresses? 🤩 Maybe that's why they recruit young and avoid taking in girls that are too old.
Hunting male channelers is a once in a generation event requiring no more than a handful of sisters. What do the rest do?
Being advisers to powerful rulers is great and makes sense. The tower gets access to that power and influence events. Yet they still half-ass this effort too! They are only in the main continent, with no representation among Aiel and the rest of the world. Even of not worth the effort of sending a sister permanently there, they should at least know about regions like Seanchan, Shara etc.
Additionally, this does not require channeling, so mostly just a power grab for the sake of it (no problem with that).
Fighting the dark one and his forces. The 3 oaths are very restrictive, but at least they allow this. And yet, aside from Moiraine, there is very little of active fighting from the tower. Some comments above have covered this. We would expect an Aes Sedai base in the borderlands at the very least! As things stand they just aren't ready for any assault from the blight. In fact, they ignore all these and leave them to normal soldiers to deal with. Why?
Ofcourse a simple explanation to all this is that Ishamael has been busy weakening the opposition and bogging them down to ineffectiveness. I think it's even mentioned somewhere that he may be the reason behind Aes Sedai binding themselves with 3 oaths (he wouldn't care what oaths as long as they bind themselves).