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.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 topick 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!My Productivity Secrets with Microsoft 365 Copilot—Now Available for Self-Service!
Discover how effective time management and the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot helped me balance life, work, and a part-time master’s program. With Copilot now available for self-service purchase, you can easily enhance your productivity by adding it to your existing Microsoft plan.What’s new in Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word at Ignite 2024
Welcome to everything Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word at Microsoft Ignite 2024. Below you’ll find the latest and greatest innovation announced at Ignite. We’re thrilled to announce new capabilities that will help you easily create relevant documents, edit and iterate with ease, and get insights for quick comprehension.
