What are AI Add-Ins in Outlook?
Microsoft Outlook users can access email productivity AI features across its Office products through Office add-ins store. AI add-ins help users write emails and manage their inboxes and appointments—without switching to another tab or app.
Some of the most popular AI add-ons in Outlook:
- AI-powered reply generator - uses natural language processing to understand the context of an email and provide intelligent and relevant replies.
- Mailbutler’s Smart Assistant - provides features such as email tracking, scheduling, predictive text, and task management.
- Wordeep for Outlook - this tool fact checks English writing in real-time.
- Grammarly for Outlook - helps you write more efficiently using AI communication assistance in MS Office, MS Outlook, MS Teams, and more.
How To Integrate AI tools into Outlook
To integrate AI tools into your Outlook, follow the steps below.
Some add-ins require administrator access, but many are easy to install even without tech savvy. All you need is the Office add-ins store.
- Go to the updated Store by clicking All Apps then Add Apps from the ribbon.
- Go to the Navigation Bar (typically on the left side of the screen), and click More Apps then Add Apps at the bottom right corner of the popup window.
- Find the app you want, or explore the add-ins available by clicking on the search box at the top of the left panel. If you want to look for free AI plugins, type "AI."
Use Microsoft Copilot
Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an AI-powered chatbot and productivity tool designed to seamlessly integrate into the Microsoft ecosystem. Because it uses large language models (LLMs), you can treat Copilot as your versatile personal assistant as it integrates your data into various Microsoft 365 apps and services.
Copilot not only serves as an AI email assistant but also offers real-time intelligent assistance. It helps users generate creative ideas, improve the quality of their work, and minimize the time processing their emails.
Since Copilot’s rollout, 70% of its users report being more productive, and almost 80% didn’t want to give it up once they started with it.
💡 Clean Email helps you stay on top of inbox management with smart features and automation—without additional configurations. More on this shortly!
Features offered by Copilot
Integrating Copilot into Outlook offers AI email management capabilities. It enables you to manage your inbox and write contextually rich emails:
- Pull the essential parts of an email thread—summarized content, suggested next steps, replies, and follow-up meetings.
- Choose and apply your desired length and tone when drafting an email.
- Its AI email responder drafts AI email replies in a single click.
Aside from AI for email writing, you can also ensure you are on top of team collaboration with Microsoft Copilot. If used in conjunction with Teams, you can:
- Summarize conversations while highlighting the key discussion points and insights.
- Match answers to questions from the meeting.
- Catch up on discussions you missed.
- Develop meeting agendas by feeding the chat history.
- Drive CRM efforts by determining people to follow up with and schedule meetings with them.
How to turn on Copilot in Microsoft 365
To enable Copilot, go to any Microsoft 365 app and find the Copilot icon in the ribbon menu.
Sometimes, Copilot automatically launches on certain apps like Word or Excel through a dialog box, often containing suggestions.
What if Copilot doesn’t work
If Copilot doesn't work in Outlook, here are some things you can do to troubleshoot:
- Make sure you have updated your Microsoft 365 license and that your system complies with the prerequisites. For many of us, Microsoft Copilot already exists in Microsoft 365 apps.
- If this isn't the case, you'll likely need to update your Microsoft applications.
- Copilot only works in the new Outlook app and the web version. Ensure that you have updated your Outlook to the latest version. Switch to the new Outlook by selecting Try the new Outlook in your existing Outlook.
- Change the language settings to English.
How to switch off Copilot if you don’t like it
- Click Get add-ins in the Home ribbon.
- On the left pane of Add-Ins for Outlook, select My add-ins.
- On the Sales Copilot card, select Manage Add-In (...). This can be found at the bottom-right corner. Tap Remove.
Automate Your Outlook Email Management
Clean Email's intelligent features save time and precious headspace. Think of it as a smart way of staying on top of your inbox and letting automation do the dirty work for you.
Many of our users rave about features such as Cleaning Suggestions and Smart Folders because there's no need for additional configuration. Everything has been set up and pre-configured for much easier use.
Cleaning Suggestions let you receive the ultimate cleaning instructions. Imagine a dashboard that automatically sorts your existing emails, without you having to search through them yourself. All you have to do is to choose whether to keep certain emails, unsubscribe, or direct them to the Trash.
It also considers previous actions you’ve taken and data on what other users have done with similar emails. Then it creates personalized cleaning recommendations based on these data.
Smart Folders contain 33 predefined filters that organize your emails into categories—Online Shopping, Social Notifications, Seasonal Sales, and many more. This feature makes it simple to find important emails from specific categories or eliminate unwanted bulk messages simultaneously.
You may opt to change your preferences or use the predefined filters as they are.
Conclusion
Managing our emails daily can be overwhelming with the messages we receive from our coworkers, clients, and brands.
Some even manage to penetrate our email management system's spam filters and fill up our folders with unwanted promotional emails! Then we need to unsubscribe from emails on Outlook, which is just another task.
Integrating AI for Outlook email paves the way for seamless inbox management and improved productivity. Email management tools like Clean Email do the heavy lifting for us by leveraging intelligent features and automating inbox management.
