"Outlook Email Summarization Comes to Copilot Chat—No License Needed”

Outlook email summarization is coming for Copilot Chat users.

Rolling out from August, you'll no longer need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to summarize emails in Outlook. In both Outlook classic and new Outlook for Windows, users will be able to create a thread summary in their Outlook reading pane.

This is a fantastic upgrade for free tier users and shows that Microsoft's previously communicated intent about bringing Copilot Chat to the Microsoft 365 apps doesn't end with just a chat pane.

Of course, with Microsoft 365 Copilot, you're not limited to just summarizing email threads, but attachments too. This isn't mentioned as a feature for Copilot Chat users and may be the moat Microsoft is maintaining for this type of feature to encourage usage of the paid license.

In a world where AI is becoming the default rather than an add-on, Microsoft being more aggressive in making it a core Microsoft 365 feature makes sense. However, this being the case fails to offer an answer to one of the most important questions of the AI age: how does all this stuff make money in the longer term?

First posted on Linkedin on 08/05/2025 -> View Linkedin post here