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Tweaks to Copilot for Outlook Make the Functionality More Accessible
On Tuesday, I reported that I thought the new Facilitator agent in Teams chat is a good example of AI performing a task well. It’s evidence of how the initial rush of deploying AI everywhere to anything that could have a Copilot label applied is moderating into better implementations.
Message center notification MC892651 (last updated 18 March 2025, Microsoft 365 roadmap item 397092) could be regarded as being in the same category. In this case, the UI for Copilot interactions in the Outlook has what Microsoft terms as “major design improvements” for the new Outlook on Windows and Mac desktops, OWA, and Outlook mobile clients. Outlook classic remains unaltered.
Perhaps because it involves major improvements or a wide range of clients, the deployment of the update has been delayed. Microsoft originally intended to have full deployment done by late February 2025. That date is now late April 2025. When this happens, it normally means that Microsoft had to halt the deployment to fix some problems.
No New Functionality in Revamped UI
According to Microsoft, the revamped UI doesn’t include any new functionality. I never saw the ‘rewrite like a poem’ option before (which might have improved some of my email enormously), so the fact that the new layout and navigation makes this option accessible (Figure 1) is proof that the overhaul works.
Of course, things work differently on mobile devices, but the changes seem to make things better there too (Figure 2).
By comparison, the Copilot options in Outlook classic are a tad austere (Figure 3), just like the options were like in the other clients before the change. The changes made in the other clients proves once again that good design is important when it comes to making technology accessible to users.
UI Great, Text Awful
I like the UI changes and think they improve how Copilot for Outlook works. However, the changes do nothing to improve the quality of the written text generated by Copilot, which remains bland and overly effusive to my taste. I guess that’s my personal approach to email shining through because I favor brief to-the-point messages over lengthy missives.
The late Mark Hurd (CEO of HP at the time) once advised me to always put the most important information in a message into the first paragraph so that recipients could quickly review items in their inbox without needing to read long messages on mobile devices (Blackberries and iPAQs then). Technology has moved on, but the advice is still true, especially as so many different forms of mobile devices are now in use. Maybe Copilot for Outlook needs a rewrite in one brief paragraph option.
More Change to Come
Although it sometimes seems much longer, we’re still only two years into the Copilot era. We’ll see more changes like this as Microsoft refines and enhances how Copilot is integrated into apps. Now that they’ve given Outlook a nice new UI, perhaps they’ll do the same for Excel and PowerPoint to make it easier to use Copilot in those apps. Or maybe that’s just me moaning because I’m not as proficient as I should be with those apps.
So much change, all the time. It’s a challenge to stay abreast of all the updates Microsoft makes across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Subscribe to the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook to receive monthly insights into what happens, why it happens, and what new features and capabilities mean for your tenant.