Copilot in Microsoft 365 is an AI-powered assistant designed to provide information, answer questions, and engage in conversation. It uses Open AI’s ChatGPT 4 technology plus your apps and data to deliver relevant and useful responses directly from the browser or from your Office apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook, making it a hugely accessible and valuable.

Note: Copilot is not included within the standard Office 365 subscription, meaning that to access Copilot across your Microsoft 365 apps and services you need either a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license ($30 pupm for organisations) or a Copilot Pro license ($20 pupm for individual and family subscriptions). 

Copilot in Outlook

Copilot adds huge value across many of the core Microsoft 365 apps and service, but in the context of Outlook, I see Copilot as a huge time saver and productivity booster. Copilot in Outlook can help users manage their emails more efficiently, easily schedule meetings, quickly following up on emails and authoring better emails. Since Copilot understands the context of the email, the wider thread, and even tasks, Copilot can provide suggestions and actions that are tailored to the user’s needs.

Let’s look at how Copilot in Outlook works and what it can do.

Using Copilot in Outlook

First things first, to use Copilot in Outlook, you need to be using the new Outlook experience (or Outlook on the web). To do this check that the new Outlook Experie4nce toggle is set to on.

1. Summarising an email thread.

With an email open, you’ll see the Copilot Summarise icon at the top of the email thread. With an email selected, you can simply click “Summary by Copilot” and Copilot will scan through the entire email thread to look for key points and will then generate a summary for you.

The Copilot summary will appear at the top of the last email of the conversation as illustrated below.

Within the summary, Copilot includes citations (indicated by small reference numbers), which are hyperlinks back to the corresponding email within the conversation thread. You can see here; five emails have been pulled together to create the key points I need to know.

2. Drafting an email

In my experience, this is the feature that will save you the most time whilst also helping to ensure your email is polite, on-point, profession and inclusive in tone.

To use the Draft with Copilot feature, simply click on the button to reply to an email or start a new one. You’ll see that Copilot automatically offers you several quick options. Select “Custom” to generate a personalised draft. In the example below, I am going to use Copilot to help me author an email to my builder.

In the Draft with Copilot dialog, we simply describe what we would like to say. You can use the settings button to change things like tone and length.

Copilot will then generate you a response. Once created you can tweak the response, change, modify it or ask Copilot to regenerate. Copilot can be quite “creative” so be sure to review the draft and modify it as needed. The video example below shows the immediate response and a change I ask it to make. You can keep asking for changes until you are happy or accept the draft and make the final changes.

3. Replying to an email with Copilot

This is like drafting new email, but when replying to an email, Copilot also has better context, since it has access to the entire email thread making the drafted responses, in my experience, more accurate on first take!

In this example, I am replying to an email about a Gang Show event being run by the Cubs and Scouts.

When I click Generate, Copilot drafts me an email. Notice how it has read the context of the email I am replying to and has even automatically calculated the cost of the tickets I want to purchase based on the pricing that was shown and by assuming that I might want two adult and two child tickets. Adult tickets are £10 and children’s tickets are £6, so the £32 is correct!

4. Coaching with Copilot

The next area Copilot in Outlook can help you is in its “coaching” ability. Here, you do the drafting and let Copilot help you with making sure the email is “on-point”. This is like using tools like Grammarly or Microsoft Editor but is more aligned to the specific email you are writing or replying to.

Using my previous example of the email to my builder, I am this time drafting an email and then asking Copilot to “coach me”. You can see in the video below, that Copilot provides me with tips to make the email better. It does this by suggesting changes to tone, specific detail and clarity based on the context of the email content.

In coaching mode, Copilot does not make changes to the email for you. Instead, it provides guidance and advice for changes based on its suggestions. You can then copy and paste the suggestions directly into the email draft.

5. More features coming soon.

Microsoft Copilot in Outlook is already great and saves lots of time, especially in drafting and summarising emails. Copilot, like the rest of Microsoft 365 is constantly evolving and there is a roadmap you can access here. Of interest in Copilot for Outlook – my upcoming favourites are:

• Schedule from email with Copilot: Often you may want to transition a conversation from an email thread to a meeting. From March 2024, Copilot will help you do this by being able to start scheduling right from the email conversation. This will save time and effort by generating a meeting invite that’s ready for you to review and send. Soon, when you click on “Schedule with Copilot” a meeting form will appear with a Copilot generated meeting title, agenda, and conversation summary as well as a pre-filled attendee list from the email thread and an attachment of the original email thread.
• Follow a meeting: This is new meeting response (RSVP) option coming in June 2024, that will go beyond the traditional Accept, Tentative and Decline choices geared towards individuals with high meeting loads and conflicting meetings each day. Follow is the ideal RSVP option for meetings you can’t attend but still want to stay engaged and receive info about. Other attendees will be able to see if you are following a meeting.

Conclusion

Outlook has long been a staple in the world of email and personal organisation. With the integration of Copilot, it takes a significant step forward in enhancing user experience. Copilot’s features are designed to streamline the way users manage their emails and schedules.

Drafting emails can often take up a significant portion of your day. Copilot assists with email composition by providing suggestions and completing sentences, making the process of writing more efficient. This is especially useful when you’re drafting responses to a large volume of emails or need to quickly send out a professional reply. Copilot’s AI-driven writing assistant helps maintain consistency and tone across your communications.

Microsoft’s aim is to make Outlook not just a tool for reading and sending emails, but a comprehensive assistant that augments productivity and organisation. With Copilot, Outlook becomes more than just an email client; it’s a powerful ally in managing your digital communication and scheduling needs. Copilot also works on Web and Mobile.