A Detailed Step-by-Step Guide to Using Copilot in Outlook for Maximum Productivity!

What is Copilot and Why You Need It

Are you feeling overwhelmed by too many emails and never have enough time to go through them? Let me introduce you to Copilot in Outlook, Microsoft's virtual AI assistant that is your personal professional writer directly available in your Outlook. In this article, I will explain how you can effectively adopt and use Copilot in your everyday life to spend less time on emails and get more done!

Let's have a look at the features available and how to efficiently use them in your day-to-day life.

How to Write Emails with Copilot in Outlook

In this example; I have received an email, and I would like to use Copilot in Outlook to read through the email(s) and give me a summary of what the email is about. Doing this is simple. You just press the “Summary by Copilot” button above the email that I have highlighted.

By pressing the “Summary by Copilot” button, I get a clean and precise summary of the email, stating that there is an imminent danger of a strike among aircraft technicians at midnight on Sunday.

How to Reply with Copilot in Outlook

Now that you want to reply to the email you have received, you have two options: either use option 1, the Copilot button on the right side, or use option 2, one of the shortcuts Copilot provides you.

Option 1:

Here you can pick either Draft with Copilot or Coaching by Copilot.

Draft with Copilot:

If you pick Draft with Copilot, you can write something like “Help me write a reply to the email from Garzai” and press “Generate=>”. Outlook will quickly generate a proper response on your behalf.

Then Copilot in Outlook will come up with a proper response to the email. You will have multiple options: either edit the response or press retry if you want changes, or press “Keep it” if you are happy with the response, and then press send.

Coaching with Copilot:

If you do not want a Copilot-generated response and prefer to respond yourself, you can write what you want to reply with, then click on “Coaching by Copilot”.

This will generate tips from Copilot on how to improve your tone, reader sentiment, and clarity, and it will give you proper finished suggestions you can insert into your email.

Option 2:

In this option, Copilot in Outlook has read through the email and auto-generated some quick replies you can use to draft a proper response. You can pick either one of the auto-generated responses or press “Custom” to tell Copilot how to respond.

What if You Have Been Double-Booked and Cannot Attend a Meeting? Send Copilot to the Meeting Instead!

In this example, my good friend Kristian Kongsgaarden Hovi and my Partner Manager at Microsoft invited me to a meeting. I now have three meetings scheduled simultaneously. Luckily, I can send Copilot to those meetings, and when the meeting is done, it will send me both the recordings of the meeting and just a summary if I prefer that.

By clicking on one of the meetings you cannot attend, you will find the “Follow-Along” button. Clicking on the arrow down button will give you the option to send Copilot to follow this single event or to do this for all meetings in the series.

When the meeting is completed, Copilot will notify you, and you can start asking Copilot in a chat window about the meeting with questions such as “What did my colleagues discuss?” or “What are my action points from this meeting?”

One tip here is to ensure not everyone uses this too heavily. You don’t want Copilots to sit in a meeting with one single person and have nobody to communicate with!

How to Get Help Preparing for Meetings, Catch Up on Meetings, or Find Your Next Meeting with a Colleague?

By clicking on the Copilot icon, a chat window with Copilot in Outlook will open, and you can ask Copilot anything. Some of the most used functionalities are the finished quick prompts provided by Microsoft. These functionalities will help you prepare for a meeting, catch up on meetings you missed and sent Copilot to follow (or were recorded by a colleague), and find your next meeting with a person.

Conclusion

Copilot in Outlook is a very powerful tool that has been very helpful. It saves me time by giving me quick summaries, helps me spend much less time on Outlook in my day-to-day life, and allows me to focus on more core responsibilities, getting more done in my daily life. It can also help you, I hope this was helpful!

Thank you for reading this far, and if I missed something, please let me know in the comments below. See you next time, where I will talk about how you can use Copilot in Teams to never take meeting notes again!