Get started with Copilot in Outlook for Windows 11

• To use Copilot in Outlook, create a new email, choose “Daft with Copilot,” and compose a prompt to generate the content.
• You can also open an existing email and click the “Summary by Copilot” to generate a summary of the email thread.
• Also, while replying to an email, you can use Copilot to suggest a reply based on the content.

Outlook includes Copilot, and in this guide, I will teach you the steps to get started using the chatbot AI in Outlook (web), Windows, macOS, iPadOS, and mobile. (These instructions are focused on the web version of the email service, but the experience is the same across the experience.)

What’s Copilot in Outlook?

Copilot is a chatbot AI assistant that uses large language models (LLMs) to help you boost your productivity when composing and managing emails.

In Outlook, Copilot can generate drafts of emails with a simple prompt, summarize email threads by pulling the most important points of each email, and review your email to provide suggestions to improve it.

The chatbot AI in Outlook is a premium feature, meaning that you will need a subscription for Copilot Pro in addition to a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscription. Also, the feature is only available for the primary mailbox, and it’s not supported on mailboxes from Exchange Online.

In this guide, I will outline the steps to use Copilot in Outlook for Windows 11 and where supported. (Copilot is also available in Word.)

How to use Copilot in Outlook

Copilot in Outlook allows you to summarize emails, generate drafts, and get coaching help. Here’s how

Create new email drafts

To use Copilot to create draft emails in Outlook, use these steps:

1. Open Outlook.

2. Click on Home.

3. Click the New button to start the email composer.

4. Click the Message tab.

5. Click the Copilot button and choose the “Draft with Copilot” option.

   

6. Compose a prompt in the box detailing how you want the chatbot AI to create an email draft.

   

7. Open the Generation options menu and choose the tone and length of the message.

   

8. Click the Generate button.

9. Review the email draft.

10. (Optional) Compose an additional prompt with details you want to add or change.

11. Click the Submit button.

12. (Optional) Click the Regenerate button to rewrite the draft.

13. Click the Keep it button to insert the draft into the body of the email.

    

Once you complete the steps, it’s important to edit the draft to make it yours, complete the email process as you usually do, and send it.

The draft feature doesn’t have a limit on the length of the prompt. However, the AI will scan the message or email threads for replies to generate a response, but there’s a limit on how deep the chatbot can process on long threads.

Create email replies

To use Copilot to reply to messages in Outlook, use these steps:

1. Open Outlook.

2. Choose the email to reply from the Inbox pane.

3. Click the Reply button.

4. Choose one of the Copilot suggestions for the reply or click the Custom button.

   

   Quick note: The Custom option will bring up the prompt box to compose the details you want to use to create the reply draft.

5. Compose a prompt in the box detailing how you want the chatbot AI to create an email draft.

6. Open the Generation options menu and choose the tone and length of the message.

7. Click the Generate button.

8. Review the email draft.

   

9. (Optional) Compose an additional prompt with details you want to add or change.

10. Click the Submit button.

11. (Optional) Click the Regenerate button to rewrite the draft.

12. Click the Keep it button to insert the draft into the body of the email.

After you complete the steps, the reply will be inserted into the message, and you can continue finishing the email.

Summarize emails

To use Copilot to summarize emails in Outlook, use these steps:

1. Open Outlook.

2. Choose the email from the Inbox pane.

3. Click the “Summary by Copilot” option at the top of the email.

   

After you complete the steps, the chatbot AI will scan the email threads and create a summary.

It’s important to note that this feature can only process a limited number of threads because of the amount of data the AI can process at one time. As a result, old emails may not be included in the final summary.

Copilot coaching

The chatbot AI also offers a coaching feature that reviews your email and provides suggestions to improve clarity, tone, and reader sentiment.

1. Open Outlook.

2. Click on Home.

3. Click the New button to start the email composer.

4. Compose the body of the email as you usually do.

5. Click the Message tab.

6. Click the Copilot button and choose the “Coaching by Copilot” option.

   

   Quick note: You can also invoke this feature while replying to an email.

7. Click on Tone.

   

8. Review the suggestions and apply them to email (as needed).

9. Click on Reader Sentiment.

10. Review the suggestions and make the necessary changes (as needed).

11. Click on Clarity.

12. Review the suggestions and rewrite the message (as needed).

13. (Optional) Click the Regenerate button to recreate the suggestions.

Once you complete the steps, review the entire message and send the email.

The Coaching feature works only on messages with more than 100 characters.

Also, you cannot customize Copilot in Outlook, but you should use your thumb up and down whenever possible to rate the AI-generated content to help improve the system.

Finally, remember that the AI can generate inaccurate responses. As such, it’s important to always review the content before sending it.