7 great Copilot prompts for the holiday season
This holiday season, Microsoft 365 Copilot is here to help you and your organization free up time and focus on what’s important. We’ve put together seven of our favorite Copilot prompts for preparing for out of office, planning holiday events, and catching up on work quickly. Share the prompt examples below with your users to inspire greater Copilot usage during the season! 1. Thank your team (Outlook) A heartfelt end-of-the-year message can make your team feel valued and recognized for their hard work, setting a positive tone for the upcoming year. Prompt: Write an end-of-the-year message to my team congratulating them on a great year and all the work on [Project Monaco]. Use a warm and appreciative tone with some light humour. Consider incorporating bullet points to highlight specific achievements or milestones. Try it in Outlook – Create a new email, select “Draft with Copilot” and paste this prompt. Pro tip: Use Copilot to tailor the email further, like adjusting the tone or length of the email or including the names of your co-workers in the prompt to make the response more personal. 2. Set your out-of-office message (Business Chat) Need to setup an out-of-office reply? Copilot can draft a festive message for you, spreading holiday cheer while ensuring your contacts know when you'll be back and who to reach out to in your absence. You can even request a reminder for how to set Out of Office replies in Outlook. Prompt: Write some funny Out of Office email responses to use while I'm on vacation from [Dates]. Also include steps for how to set this in Outlook. Try it in Business Chat via this link. Pro tip: Ask Copilot to turn the messages into poems! 3. Keep your team updated on important holiday details (Word) Be confident everyone is on the same page regarding office hours, vacation schedules, and key deadlines. Leverage this prompt to create a template that you can customize and share with your team to maintain smooth operations and foster a supportive, well-coordinated team environment. Prompt: Create a template for a holiday schedule that outlines office hours, team members' vacation days, and any important deadlines during the holiday season Try it: Create a blank document on Word, and ask Copilot to generate this template for you. Pro tip: Select the paperclip icon to attach relevant emails, files, or meetings as references to the prompt to further tailor Copilot’s response. 4. Kickstart team event planning (Business Chat) Need help with catering for a team event? Streamline the party planning process with Copilot. From menu comparison to cost analysis, Copilot will help with the research and ensure you make the best choices for your team. Prompt: List options for a local catering company that can support a holiday event for 20 people. Be sure to include companies that have vegetarian and gluten-free options. Try it in Business Chat via this link, or paste the above prompt into Copilot. Pro tip: Adjust the prompt and ask Copilot to look for catering companies within your city or town and have options for delivery. 5. Brainstorm gift options (Business Chat) Copilot can be your go-to assistant for brainstorming gift ideas this holiday season. Use Copilot to help you find the perfect gift to make your colleagues, friends, and family feel special. Prompt: Suggest some holiday gift ideas for my clients that are under $50 each. Ensure the list contains innovative and engaging items that ensures these are memorable. Please include a brief description of what the item is, how much it costs, and the expected reaction from different client personalities. Make the title of each item in the list a link of where to purchase it. Try it in Business Chat via this link, or paste the above prompt into Copilot. Pro tip: Experiment with this prompt to get a more personalized response – make sure the toggle is set to Work mode and ask Copilot to suggest gifts for the top 5 people you’ve recently collaborated with. 6. Catching up after the holidays (Outlook) Let Copilot help you get up to speed on important emails after you have taken some well-deserved time off. Prompt: Summarize the emails I've received over the past two weeks and prioritize them based on urgency. Try it in Outlook by selecting the Copilot icon on the right side of the top banner in the new Outlook application (or Outlook on the web). 7. Prepare for your first day (Business Chat) Feel confident on your first day back to work after the holidays by using Copilot to prepare for your meetings. Copilot will provide a recap of relevant meetings and communications. Prompt: Help me prepare for my next meeting. Try it in Business Chat via this link, or paste the above prompt into Copilot and make sure it’s toggled to Work. As you celebrate the season, let Microsoft 365 Copilot be your organization’s holiday helper. Combining specific, useful prompts with the right Microsoft 365 applications ensures users are making the most out of Copilot. For additional Copilot prompt inspiration and skilling, encourage people at your organization to explore the Copilot Prompt Gallery, where they can discover, save, and share their favorite prompts. Looking for more resources to drive Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption? Check out new Copilot user engagement tools and templates on the Microsoft Adoption site, including: User onboarding email templates (download link) Manager onboarding resources (download link) Happy Holidays! Please note that outputs may vary when using these Copilot prompts. Large language models output varying responses, even for the same exact prompts. When utilizing these suggested prompts, expect new/fresh answers from Copilot. Users should still review the outputs from Copilot to ensure that the final output aligns with the users’ goals.What’s new and coming to Microsoft Outlook – Ignite 2024
Since its launch, Copilot in Outlook has helped you manage and triage your email, providing drafting assistance, summaries, and insights to help you save time. Whether you need help drafting the appropriate email response, schedule meetings in a few clicks, find key information in an email thread, or make sure your message has the right tone and clarity, Copilot can help you achieve your goals. During Ignite, we added to our efforts to help you manage your inbox, and showed you how you can manage your meetings easier using Copilot, and also dived into the latest updates to the new Outlook for Windows and what to expect in the coming year. Let’s take a look at the capabilities we announced this week! Manage meetings easier with Copilot in Outlook We spend a lot of time in meetings during our work hours, sometimes as high as 60% of our time can be spent between meetings, emails, and chats. Even scheduling a meeting can take up to 15 mins, but Copilot can make this a little easier. Copilot now helps you schedule 1:1s and focus time, just ask Copilot to find some time with someone in your org and it will find the optimal time. Because Copilot is grounded on your organization’s data, it knows who your close collaborators are so you can ask Copilot something like “Schedule a meeting with my manager for next week” or “Schedule a meeting with Caitlin for next week” and Copilot will know to whom you are referring. Do you need time to finish a project? No problem – Ask Copilot to find reserve focus time for next week, “Find 3 hours of focus time next week before Wednesday”, and done! Now you can focus on your project. Schedule one-on-one meetings using Copilot in Outlook Meetings can make it easier to make decisions, iron details, or discuss ideas but sometimes it’s hard to keep them on track and focused. Making sure your meeting has an agenda can help you stay on track and make sure you are tackling the important points – Copilot can draft an agenda for you based on your input, just open the meeting invite, select “Draft with Copilot”, and provide some input like “Review the Contoso project, introduce a new team member, and discuss sales plan”. Copilot creates an agenda which you can easily edit. Once you are ready, just remember to send the invite. Use Copilot in Outlook to draft an agenda for your meeting Sometimes, you need to schedule a meeting with more than one person, but have you had to schedule a meeting to bring a long email to a conclusion? Reading and summarizing long email threads is time consuming and finding time between multiple people can be challenging, unless you have Copilot. Without leaving the conversation, Copilot can help you schedule a meeting to bring that long email thread to closure – Just select the “Schedule with Copilot” button and Copilot will get you ready for that meeting, it will i) Summarize the entire thread, ii) Create an agenda, and iii) find a time that works. Quick and easy, schedule a meeting in just a few clicks. Get help from Copilot to schedule a meeting based on an email conversation A new way to draft emails We all need some help sometimes writing an email, whether you are having writer’s block to start or you want to rewrite some parts of it – The new drafting with Copilot experience can help. We’ve updated the drafting experience to make it native to the compose window in Outlook, added suggested prompts so you can kick off your draft without even typing, and allow you to rewrite parts of your message with Copilot. Is it hard to choose which draft iteration is the best one? No worries, we’ve added the ability for you to review and choose between all the suggested drafts. So, whether you need a little help to get started or a lot of help to make sure you have the best message, Copilot has you covered. New Outlook for Windows showing the new drafting with Copilot experience What is new and coming to the new Outlook for Windows The new Outlook for Windows is a reimagined experience designed to be more agile and innovative. With faster feature deployment and availability, it brings the latest Microsoft 365 Copilot capabilities and delivers a consistent experience across Windows. As we continue to work on your feedback to bring you the best experience for the new Outlook for Windows, there are some updates we want to share. Where we are We reached General Availability for commercial customers this year and are still in opt-in phase with optional policies for organizations that want to move their users into new Outlook. To see all our adoption content please visit https://aka.ms/newOutlookAdoption and continue sending us your feedback at https://aka.ms/newOutlookFeedback to help us prioritize our work. What to expect Over the past few years, we have been in an opt-in phase for the new Outlook. As we plan to transition to an opt-out model, some organizations have already begun migrating on their own. We anticipate that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with Microsoft 365 for business plans will begin to be moved into this phase starting in January 2025, and with customers with Microsoft 365 for enterprises licenses following in 2026. Importantly, there will still be an option to revert to the previous version if needed. In the coming year, we expect more organizations to expand their piloting and planning efforts for the new Outlook. During this phase, we encourage you to file DCRs and submit feedback both within the app and through your account teams. Graph showing the current state and estimated timelines What to do next The new Outlook migration journey has 3 main steps. Pre-migration, migration, and post-migration. Pre-Migration: During pre-migration, admins and their IT teams should learn as much as they can about the migration - What the migration entails and the implications for their organization. This also involves early migration piloting. Migration: The migration step is when the migration is executed. Piloting continues and the migration process evolves and becomes more extensive. Post-Migration: Finally, in post-migration, IT is wrapping up the activities from the second step. They’re also decommissioning the previous experience and learning to improve subsequent migrations. Graph showing the migration stages for the new Outlook for Windows Plan your migration Review the migration kit - https://aka.ms/newOutlookAdoption Admin control options - https://aka.ms/newOutlookControlRelease Learn about policy management - Policy Management - Deploy Office Prepare to manage updates and set up early adopters on Targeted Release Transition from COM to web add-ins - Migrate from COM to web add-ins and review a list of available web add-ins. We hope all these updates help you be more productive, save time, and plan your migration to the next phase. Please, keep sending us your feedback – It really helps us focus our work. Thanks!Introducing Themes by Copilot in Outlook
Copilot in Outlook now helps anyone with a Copilot enabled subscription or commercial license create unique and personal themes powered by AI. Outlook is also releasing new non-Copilot powered themes to make Outlook more beautiful and approachable. We are thrilled to unveil Themes by Copilot in Outlook, which harnesses the power of generative AI to help people create unique themes that reflect their personal preferences and style within their Outlook experience. Pairing well with the transformative ways Copilot in Outlook enhances your emails, this marks the first instance of dynamic AI-generated theming in productivity applications. For many, Outlook is the app that they use daily, and these innovations will help make their Outlook experience even more welcoming and inviting. These AI-powered themes are accessible to all users with a Copilot Pro consumer subscription and business accounts with Copilot enabled, starting today, November 7th. Themes by Copilot in Outlook will be available on our mobile iOS and Android apps, Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the Web, and Outlook for Mac. Take a look: Just as you might accent your desk with a candle or photos, spruce up your office with artwork or plants, or prefer the window seat on a plane, we believe that beautiful, personal digital surroundings will enhance your overall Outlook experience. How you, your personality and your tastes are represented in an app plays a significant role in how you engage with it and how it makes you feel. But your app shouldn’t only reflect the colors or lighting that you need; the artistry of imagery can connect with you, represent you, and inspire you. Over the past year, we’ve released a set of beautiful static themes with abstract imagery that caters to a variety of colors and lighting styles. Image themes now reach more surface area of the app for a truly immersive experience. Today marks an especially innovative step in our personalization journey because we’ve leveraged the best aspects of generative AI to bring imagination, surprise, and your unique context into personalization. With Themes by Copilot, you can take yourself to every corner of the world by building a theme inspired by any of the over 100 curated destinations available, or create a theme based on your own location. This personalization becomes magical when it evolves over time, considering your unique context or your own personal touch along the way. If you choose, you can make your Themes by Copilot dynamic by selecting how often you want it to update – every few hours, every day, weekly, or monthly. If you’ve enabled location permissions in Outlook, the My Location theme will bring you imagery uniquely inspired by your locale, dynamically updating for you as you head out the door on a trip or vacation. Similarly, a dynamic theme based on the weather would be updated to reflect the current weather conditions where you are. Every Copilot-generated theme automatically comes with a fun accent color, and you can further tune your theme to be in a realistic, oil painting, or cartoon style. To help you shape your theme, we created a guided experience that is easy to use, responsible, and fun. Copilot-powered themes are available in the languages that Outlook supports. No two Themes by Copilot in Outlook are the same. Every creation is unique, dynamic, and exclusively yours -- an experience only available on Outlook. Themes by Copilot will be available to be turned on in Appearance Settings in Outlook. Beneath the Themes by Copilot header, select a topic thumbnail to generate a unique Copilot-powered theme in one click or launch the custom theme tile to create your own with a topic, style, and refresh cadence of your choosing. You can always change your theme in Outlook Settings. Themes by Copilot in Outlook builds upon the strong base of Copilot functionality already available in Outlook. Whether it’s getting help with drafting a mail, summarizing a long thread, or getting coaching on your emails – Copilot in Outlook is a great way to write better emails while saving time. For work accounts, there’s also the addition of Prioritize My Inbox by Copilot, which will be available in private preview for commercial customers in late 2024. Prioritize My Inbox is designed to help people manage their entire inbox by analyzing the content of messages given the context of their role. Themes by Copilot in Outlook is yet another step on our journey to infuse the power of Copilot into Outlook. We can’t wait to see what you create! Additional Outlook Themes for Everyone For those who do not have Themes by Copilot, we have released a collection of new non-Copilot powered themes, designed to make the platform more beautiful and accessible for everyone. Over the past year, we've introduced a variety of new image themes across Outlook for Mac, Outlook on the Web, the newest Outlook for Windows, and Outlook for iOS and Android. Beyond a basic color, you can now choose from vibrant imagery with hues of deep green, red, or purple to fit your mood or the vibe you’re going for. To choose a new image theme in Web, desktop, Mac or mobile, just navigate to Appearance Settings to pick the one that represents you best! It is our goal that today these themes bring joy, creativity and a bit of whimsy to your day. It’s just another way that Outlook is looking out for our customers to help make their experiences uniquely theirs. We are excited to hear what you think!From overwhelmed to organized: How I use Copilot as a neurodivergent marketer
Learn how you can use Microsoft 365 Copilot as a powerful tool for inclusivity in your organization to maximize potential whether you are neurodivergent, an ally, or a people manager. In the second part of this series, we explore how Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat can help you break down daunting projects and boost your productivity.
