“People have an emotional attachment to their email. Everybody interacts with email according to their own highly personalized workflows, so we have to be very careful to factor that human element into any evolution or transformation of these tools.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/uploads\/prod\/2025\/08\/Mark-Stratford.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMark Stratford, senior product manager, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nReadying Outlook for a new era of work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
As our product teams explored ways to align Microsoft Outlook with the age of AI, they started with the needs of the employees who use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“People have an emotional attachment to their email,\u201d says Mark Stratford, senior product manager within Microsoft Digital, the company\u2019s IT organization. \u201cEverybody interacts with email according to their own highly personalized workflows, so we have to be very careful to factor that human element into any evolution or transformation of these tools.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, the changing nature of work is introducing new challenges for both businesses and their employees. High productivity is becoming a greater and greater necessity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But according to the Microsoft 2025 Work Trends Index<\/a>, 80% of the global labor force says they lack the time or energy to do their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Outlook continues to evolve, building on its legacy as a tool that millions of people rely on. We\u2019re transforming it into a dynamic partner that helps users navigate new demands.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Microsoft 365 Copilot is poised to support the parallel needs for personalization and productivity that will help employees excel. That requires a shift away from thinking of Outlook as a simple pane for communications and scheduling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs the pace and complexity of work accelerate, Outlook continues to evolve, building on its legacy as a tool that millions of people rely on,\u201d says Matthew Marzynski, a principal product manager of core experiences within Microsoft Digital. \u201cBy integrating AI and continuous improvement, we\u2019re transforming it from an organizer for emails and meetings into a dynamic partner that helps users navigate new demands. This will empower people to make better decisions, take meaningful action, and stay focused on what matters most in an accelerating modern work context\u2014without disrupting the familiar workflows they depend on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To enable this shift, our product teams prioritized three characteristics that capabilities in the new Outlook Copilot in Outlook should embody:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The human needs are largely the same\u2014we need to interact with each other, communicate, share materials, connect,” says Margie Clinton, group product manager for Outlook. “What AI introduces are new opportunities to enhance and streamline how we perform those tasks while offloading the responsibility for managing them onto Copilot.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Together, advanced capabilities within the new Microsoft Outlook combine with Copilot in Outlook to bring the power of AI to employees\u2019 inboxes and calendars. Rich, contextual insights make it easier to navigate communications, advanced reasoning capabilities help employees prioritize their work and their time, and proactive recommendations and automated workflows reduce the time people need to spend on administrative tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are several different ways to add ease and automation to employees\u2019 Outlook workflows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chat with Copilot<\/strong> Beyond Copilot Chat, users can access a suite of capabilities designed to streamline and enhance communication and prioritize their work and time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New email features and Copilot are game-changers for business communication. From assistance drafting emails to understanding the narrative behind a conversation, they boost employees\u2019 abilities to understand their peers and be understood themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Draft with Copilot<\/strong> Coaching by Copilot<\/strong> Summary by Copilot<\/strong> Prioritize<\/strong> Focused inbox<\/strong> Meetings dominate many employees\u2019 days. Outlook and Copilot have several new capabilities that help users manage those meetings, conduct them more smoothly, and take follow-up actions more effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The unified Microsoft 365 Calendar is at the center of the AI-enhanced scheduling and meeting experience. By centralizing the calendar function across Microsoft 365, Copilot can provide contextual, personalized experiences wherever employees access them. Outlook also brings new capabilities to the table to help people keep abreast of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chat-assisted scheduling<\/strong> Follow a meeting in Outlook<\/strong> Prepare for meetings<\/strong> New features for the new Microsoft Outlook and Copilot in Outlook wouldn\u2019t be possible without the commitment to continuous improvement that infuses so much of our work. Careful research, attainable planning, honesty and humility around how we measure outcomes, and the agility to adapt to what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not\u2014these are all muscles the Microsoft Digital and product teams are strengthening throughout our ongoing AI and continuous improvement journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019re an agile organization, and we continue to iterate across teams and features,\u201d says David Gorelik, principal group product manager for Copilot in Outlook engagements, focused on email features. \u201cThe learning that comes with hearing from our employees and customers just pours more value into that feedback loop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn an environment where people need to be hyper productive but feel completely inundated with inbound requests, it’s really clear that the ways they work need to evolve. The tools they use need to evolve as well.\u201d<\/p>\nSarah Spieler, product marketing manager, Microsoft Outlook<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The evidence is in how employees are using the new Outlook and Copilot. We\u2019ve seen a virtuous cycle that starts with new features accessed through Outlook and leads to greater AI adoption overall. Without concerted adoption efforts, 50% of Microsoft Digital employees have toggled to the new Outlook of their own accord, simply because the tool is available and its features provide value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s becoming evident that the new Outlook makes for an effective entry point into AI-first behaviors. That\u2019s all the more remarkable considering the decades-long legacy of the tool and the habituation to certain workflows it\u2019s fostered. Users who have switched over to the new Outlook are 3.5 times more likely to engage with Copilot. Outlook is also the third-largest driver of Copilot usage after Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn an environment where people need to be hyper productive but feel completely inundated with inbound requests, it’s really clear that the ways they work need to evolve,\u201d says Sarah Spieler, a product marketing manager within Microsoft Outlook. \u201cThe tools they use need to evolve as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key takeaways<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n As we\u2019ve witnessed the evolution of Microsoft Outlook usage among our employees, we\u2019ve learned lessons that can help you empower your own people to reimagine their workflows. Here are some trends we\u2019ve noticed and ways we\u2019re approaching them internally at Microsoft:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Try it out<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s how to get started with Copilot in Outlook.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Related links<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n In just a few short years, work has changed in fundamental ways. The rapid rise of AI has brought an entirely new mindset to the workplace. To adapt to that shifting mindset, we\u2019re reimagining how the tools employees use meet them in the moments that matter. That\u2019s especially true for things they use every day, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":20044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_hide_featured_on_single":false,"_show_featured_caption_on_single":true,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[882],"tags":[199,597,850,263,827],"coauthors":[622],"class_list":["post-20042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-it-strategy","tag-ai","tag-employee-experience","tag-end-user-services-and-support","tag-microsoft-365","tag-microsoft-365-copilot","m-blog-post"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/uploads\/prod\/2025\/08\/Matthew-Marzynski.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMatthew Marzynski, principal product manager, core experiences, Microsoft Digital<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n
AI in Outlook: Transforming communications and scheduling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Using Outlook side-by-side with Copilot Chat helps users retrieve information contextually, without leaving the app or their flow of work. From there, they take action using natural language. This feature supports broader conversations about organizational data and information from the web while addressing personally relevant questions about an employee\u2019s specific context. For example, an employee might ask Copilot to summarize an email thread and ask if there are any calls to action.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nStreamlining and enhancing communication<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
There are plenty of reasons why different people experience different challenges while drafting emails. They may not be natural writers, or they might be communicating across languages, or the sheer volume of communications may just feel overwhelming. Draft with Copilot alleviates these burdens<\/a> by inviting employees to prompt their AI assistant with the essential content to include in their message so they can edit it after Copilot has done the heavy lifting. If a user has existing text that needs refining, they can simply highlight the content and hit the Copilot button to reveal a set of helpful prompts for rewriting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coaching boosts employee confidence when drafting emails<\/a>. It provides suggestions on tone, clarity, and sentiment, and surfaces insights into how the reader might interpret the message. Unlike drafting, coaching takes what employees have already written and provides suggestions for making it clearer and more effective. People who want to get better at communicating or need assistance getting their message across stand to benefit from this feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It can be a struggle for employees to catch up with long, meandering email threads, and they can feel overwhelmed if they don\u2019t have time to review all their messages. AI-generated email summaries keep employees informed while minimizing this burden.<\/a> Copilot looks for key points in a message or thread to create a summary that appears at the top of the email, even providing numbered citations where necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s easy for employees to feel overwhelmed when they\u2019re inundated with emails. Knowing where to start might seem impossible. To combat this paralysis, Copilot reviews your emails as they arrive in your inbox and assigns them a priority<\/a> based on factors that include the people on the thread, their job titles, action items, and more. This feature doesn\u2019t delay emails because the process happens in parallel with delivery. Instead, it\u2019s about empowering employees with support for decision-making around what requires their most urgent attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more ways there are to organize and prioritize emails, the more quickly employees can start tackling the tasks that matter to their work. This feature separates an employee\u2019s inbox into two tabs: \u201cFocused and \u201cOther.\u201d<\/a> A user\u2019s most important email messages show up on the \u201cFocused\u201d tab while the rest remain easily accessible on the \u201cOther\u201d tab. Focused inbox recognizes that while all messages deserve attention, not all of them need that attention immediately. Outlook can help employees decide which is which based on the context it assembles through access to an employee\u2019s wider digital community and behaviors. It considers email accounts and contacts while filtering out noisy sources like automatically generated or bulk emails.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nPrioritizing work and time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
For users who\u2019d rather rely entirely on their AI assistants to manage their meetings, Copilot simplifies the process of scheduling and blocking time directly<\/a>. Employees just type a prompt into Chat, and Copilot will suggest available times after checking the calendars of all attendees in order to find a convenient slot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the same way that getting inundated with emails can feel overwhelming, employees can also get swamped with meetings. Sometimes it\u2019s best to opt out, even if a meeting\u2019s agenda includes important information or action items. If an employee is unable to attend a meeting, they can select \u201cfollow\u201d as their response to the invite<\/a>. This feature for the new Outlook reminds the organizer to record the meeting and alerts the employee to any follow-ups. To stay up to speed with action items and important information, the attendee can access the recording and meeting transcript.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coming into a meeting cold can be a frustrating experience. Meetings are also more productive when participants are fully primed to engage and contribute. Copilot prepares employees for meetings within minutes<\/a> by summarizing key information, including overviews of relevant emails and documents, specific actionable tasks, and recaps of previous sessions. This minimizes the cognitive load that meeting preparation puts on employees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nContinuously improving and innovating in Microsoft Outlook<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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