We recently learned that Microsoft is working on several interesting features for Outlook, including some powered by Copilot. While those capabilities are still under development, the Redmond tech giant has announced some new agentic experiences for Outlook so that Copilot works for you rather than with you.
Although Copilot has already been integrated into Outlook for quite some time, it typically works in the context of things open right in front of you. For example, it can summarize emails for you or draft content based on your prompt. However, Microsoft is now making it agentic by enabling it to follow your instructions and work autonomously.
Copilot in Outlook can now directly manage your inbox for you. You can prompt it to help you with follow-ups based on specific criteria, draft complex emails after going over your latest inbox updates, create a rule to automatically announce categories, and catch up after a vacation by highlighting important updates, recommending emails to archive, and suggesting tasks that you can start with first.
In the same vein, agentic Copilot experiences are coming to the Outlook Calendar as well. It can respond to meeting invites, reschedule meetings, block focus time, schedule recurring meetings, and draft an agenda for an upcoming meeting. You can even ask it to evaluate your calendar and intelligently decide which meetings you can decline or delegate, along with helping you to prepare for upcoming events.
The good news is that all of these features are available today for Outlook customers, but the not-so-good news is that it's limited only to Frontier customers for now. For those unaware, Microsoft's Frontier program allows organizations ready to embrace AI to opt in to experimental features ahead of everyone else. Keep in mind that inbox management features are available for all Outlook endpoints, while calendar actions are being rolled out only for Outlook on Windows and the web.
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