Your New AI-Powered Outlook Assistant
Outlook has come to feel like mission control for our lives. On any given day, up to 200 work emails blow in that must be carefully sorted. A barrage of back-to-back meetings pops up on the calendar. And those growing lists of to-dos keep moving on and on. The inbox overload struggle feels never-ending. How can we keep up?
Enter Microsoft 365 Copilot, an artificial intelligence (AI) service designed to unburden us within Outlook. Copilot acts like a helpful coworker at your side, offering suggestions to shorten emails, propose meetings times, remind you of pending deadlines, and more. But is enabling an AI assistant to view and analyze your communications unnerving? How does Copilot even determine what recommendations to provide?
As a long-time AI researcher and lead data scientist focused on natural language applications, I’ve been thoroughly impressed by Copilot’s capabilities. In this guide, we’ll explore how Microsoft developed Copilot to securely tap into multiple data streams and interact via natural language. Plus get hands-on with how this AI productivity booster can actually save you upwards of 30 minutes per week handling common Outlook tasks.
What Does Copilot Do in Outlook?
According to Microsoft’s own research, we spend roughly 4.1 hours per weekday in Outlook. And a bulk of that gets eaten up by low-value manual work – sorting through emails, scheduling coordination back-and-forth, status updates, filling out task lists. Copilot aims to help minimize time wasted on these mundane activities.
When active in the Outlook message window, Copilot analyzes draft emails and provides suggestions on improving tone, length, clarity, engagement and overall quality. You can view the recommendations and choose to accept or ignore each one. An email quality score will reflect how close your draft is to an ideal final version tailored for the recipient.
But recommendations come from more than just email content. Copilot taps into Microsoft Graph, an intelligent fabric connecting Office apps with LinkedIn, organizational data and more. If you mention a project name while drafting an email, Copilot can add relevant details from SharePoint. Names of people can link to their credentials on LinkedIn to remind you who someone is.
Copilot also makes meeting scheduling easier by analyzing calendars across an organization to propose times that work for everyone. Based on email subject lines, Copilot might add a follow up task to your To Do list so the message gets back on your radar screen. And if you request a specific document but can’t locate it, Copilot can perform a contextual search to help surface the file location across all synced content sources.
Key Statistics and Facts on Copilot Productivity
A few noteworthy statistics demonstrating the benefits Copilot provides:
- During internal testing, Microsoft employees saved upwards of 30 minutes per week handling email and meetings with Copilot support.
- Within three months of rollout, over 300,000 monthly active Commercial Copilot users sent around 1 billion emails leveraging the AI writing and editing assistance.
- On average, Copilot provides upwards of 5 suggestions per email focused on improvements for clarity, conciseness, tone matching and overall quality.
- For mobile Outlook users, over 50% of recommendations get applied to enhance message content and effectiveness.
According to Jared Spataro, CVP Microsoft 365, "Copilot writes alongside you and gives you a boost in being understood and effective when communicating critical information across mediums like email, documents, and presentations."
The numbers indicate that suggestions clearly provide value. Next let‘s walk through activating Copilot so you can experience the AI assistant firsthand.
Enabling Copilot in Outlook Step-By-Step
Getting started only takes a few quick enablement steps:
- Open Outlook and click on File > Options > Mail
- In the Compose Messages section, check the box next to Enable Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Click OK to save the changes
Once enabled, watch for the Copilot icon to appear at the bottom right corner when composing emails or replies. Click this at any time to open Copilot’s sidebar of suggestions for improving your draft.
How To Interact With Copilot
There are a few options for engaging with Copilot while working in Outlook:
- Copilot Sidebar – Click the Copilot icon in the message window to view length, tone and clarity suggestions.
- Keyboard Shortcut – Press Ctrl + Space to activate the Copilot suggestion sidebar.
- Natural Language Commands – Use plain English like "Make this formal" for Copilot to rewrite your email.
As the AI analyzes your draft text, the icon will pulse. Click to reveal proposed tweaks. You can hover over a suggestion to preview how accepting would alter your email. If the change looks good, apply it. Otherwise dismiss recommendations not suitable by choosing the x icon.
Over time Copilot will learn your preferred writing style and communication preferences to better target its assistance.
Comparing Copilot Capabilities
How does Microsoft‘s AI email enhancements stack up against competitors? Google‘s Smart Compose for Gmail similarly offers autocomplete predictions as you type messages. However, Copilot delivers more advanced editing, proofing and rewriting capabilities by comparison.
For example, inserting relevant content from across other Office documents and data sources is unique to Copilot. Smart Compose primarily speeds up draft writing through pre-populated phrases versus optimizing send-ready content quality.
| Feature | Copilot | Smart Compose |
|---|---|---|
| Content Suggestions | Yes | Yes |
| Message Improvement | Yes | No |
| Contextual Recommendations | Yes | No |
| Relevant Content Insertion | Yes | No |
The placement of Copilot recommendations directly within the compose flow rather than a separate editing step also proves more user-friendly. The end goal remains reducing overall effort spent crafting effective communications.
Understanding the AI Behind Copilot
So how does Copilot actually work? The service relies on several key Microsoft AI capabilities:
Natural Language Processing – Advanced NLP models analyze text to understand content, style and sentiment.
Neural Networks – Complex systems recognize patterns and relationships between words and phrases.
Reinforcement Learning – Copilot identifies positive outcomes via user acceptance of suggestions.
Information Retrieval – Search indexing and matching surfaces related content from across data sources.
According to Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott, "We‘ve had these large language models that translate text from one language to another. But can we build models that are really, really good at understanding language structure and grammar to be assistive in authoring…that was the genesis of Copilot."
The end result? An AI-powered service that goes beyondbasic autocorrect to actively enhance written communication effectiveness.
Copilot Benefits for Outlook Users
From simplified scheduling to optimized communication impact, Copilot incorporates AI assistance into multiple facets of the Outlook experience:
Time Savings – Reduce hours wasted sorting mail and penning formal replies with Copilot handling suggestions.
Increased Productivity – Stay on track through Reminders and To Do task additions driven by email analysis.
Reduced Stress – Copilot lifts some of the inbox management burden off your shoulders.
Improved Collaboration – Copilot recommends other team members to include on relevant emails to keep aligned.
Boost Understanding – Recipient-tailored tone and clarity improvements per email increase reader comprehension.
Basically, Copilot automated support handles the busywork so you can focus on high-value priorities. The service runs in the background monitoring how to best assist as you handle mail and messages.
Maximizing Copilot For Your Workload
While Copilot delivers universal aid, you may be wondering if additional tips exist for customizing suggestions to your personal workflows.
For those managing high volume mailboxes, lean on Copilot to flag messages most needing replies. Activate the “Focused Inbox” under View > Focused so the service can categorize emails by importance.
Customize rules like “Alert me for pings from my manager” so Copilot applies special notification treatments. This ensures priority exchanges never get lost in the fray.
Similarly, grant Copilot access to your Office calendar under File > Manage > Copilot Permissions. Checking availability when others request meetings saves scheduling hassle.
And don’t forget to sync your To Do list under View > To-Do Bar so task additions trigger reminders. Monitoring assignments across apps prevents falling through the cracks on deliverables.
The key remains tailoring Copilot access to data sources relevant for your specific role and Outlook needs. Allowing appropriate permissions lets the AI assistant provide the most effective, personalized guidance.
Common Copilot Questions
We’ve covered a lot of ground explaining how Microsoft 365 Copilot enhances Outlook. Before wrapping up, let’s address some frequently asked questions for a little extra context:
Is my data secure enabling Copilot?
Absolutely – Microsoft releases regular compliance reports proving data safety. Plus Copilot suggestions utilize temporary "snapshots" rather than retaining personal content.
Can Copilot monitor all my Office app usage?
No, administrators expressly control which apps Copilot can access suggestions to scope data privacy.
Will Copilot replace my need to manually write emails?
The goal of Copilot remains augmenting communications with AI, not fully automating effort. Suggestions provide assistance but ultimate control stays in your hands.
What if I want to disable Copilot at any point?
You can toggle Copilot off or on at any moment. Simply revisit the enablement switch under Outlook Mail settings.
As you evaluate integrating Copilot into daily workflows, don’t hesitate to reach out with other questions!
The Future with Copilot By Our Side
As Copilot usage continues expanding across Office, Microsoft stands committed to Responsible AI development guardrails protecting both data privacy and user experience quality. But the possibilities feel endless in terms of hands-free assistance.
What if Copilot could listen into your meetings and automatically draft up templated minutes to share? Or scan your documents and populate missing information based on web research in your industry? The coming years will prove transformative as to how AI services boost knowledge worker productivity.
While the technology remains imperfect, Copilot already feels like a helpful teammate collaborating within Outlook. Let the AI give your inbox a productivity upgrade through improved meetings, polished messages and more. The future of work looks brighter with Copilot by our side!
