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If cutting-edge artificial intelligence could truly tame the daily onslaught of emails, it would make a huge difference for tens of millions of workers. Microsoft, which dominates workplace email with Outlook, thinks it has a solution with its AI-assistant, Copilot.
“Until now, Copilot in Outlook helped with the task in front of you: drafting an email, catching up on a long thread, or finding a time to meet,” Microsoft says in a recent blog post. “Copilot in Outlook is now agentic, taking on the ongoing work of running your inbox and calendar.”
That tech update, if it works well, means that a helpful tool is turning into a true personal assistant, with the ability to tackle complicated inbox tasks. Microsoft says its AI tool can automatically schedule meetings, send emails to coworkers and recommend which meetings to decline. It promises to automate follow-ups with employees that haven’t responded, pinpoint messages that are urgent and reschedule conflicts.
To make the system work, users write simple commands for the Copilot chatbot. For keeping tabs on responses to an important project, Microsoft says to tell the Copilot chatbot to “Identify people who haven’t replied to my emails after 24 hours, prioritize the ones that matter most, and draft polite follow-up emails for me.”
For complex emails, the company suggests writing, “Pull the latest updates on [project name] over the last week. Draft a confidential, high‑importance update email for my manager.” After a week off, try telling Copilot, “I just returned from vacation. Help me catch up: summarize what I’ve missed, highlight what’s most urgent, and draft a short briefing email. Then suggest emails I can safely archive and 1-2 tasks I should focus on first.”
This type of automation holds promise but could also create new problems. If workers are increasingly responding back and forth to AI-created messages rather than human-written ones, there could be more confusion and miscommunication. The accuracy of automated decision-making and AI’s ability to understand nuance are other key elements that will make or break the tech.
As these capabilities roll out to tens of millions of workers, it could mark a major shift in workplace communication. The potential for time savings is very real, especially for managers, salespeople and other workers inundated with messages that require a response.
The AI-enhanced features are currently available for those in a Microsoft AI early adopter program and require a Copilot subscription, which ranges from about $20-$30 per user per month. Expect it to be widely available soon for Copilot subscribers.
This forecast first appeared in The Kiplinger Letter, which has been running since 1923 and is a collection of concise weekly forecasts on business and economic trends, as well as what to expect from Washington, to help you understand what’s coming up to make the most of your investments and your money. Subscribe to The Kiplinger Letter.
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