Copilot in Outlook: Calendar and Scheduling

Overview

Government professionals spend a significant portion of their week in meetings—but preparation for those meetings often gets squeezed out by the meetings themselves. You jump from one call to the next without reviewing the agenda, checking what was discussed last time, or reading related emails. The result is wasted time getting oriented at the start of every meeting and missed context that could have made the discussion more productive.

Copilot in Outlook calendar addresses this by helping you prepare for meetings with relevant context gathered automatically, get insights about your schedule through natural language questions, and manage scheduling tasks like invitations and follow-ups more efficiently.

What You’ll Learn

• Access: Where to find Copilot in Outlook calendar and what you need
• Prepare: How to use Copilot to get ready for upcoming meetings
• Insights: How to ask Copilot about your schedule
• Manage: How to handle scheduling, conflicts, and follow-ups

Script

Hook: Walk into every meeting prepared

How often do you walk into a meeting without reviewing the agenda, past notes, or related emails? If you are like most government professionals, it happens more than you would like. Your calendar is packed, meetings run back-to-back, and there is no time between them to prepare.

The result is that the first five minutes of every meeting become catch-up time. You are trying to remember what was discussed last time while the conversation has already moved forward.

Copilot in Outlook calendar changes this. It gathers relevant context for your meetings, answers questions about your schedule, and helps you manage meeting logistics—all from your calendar. In the next five minutes, you will learn how to make the most of it.

Prerequisites and where to find Copilot in calendar

You need a Microsoft 365 Copilot license to use Copilot with your Outlook calendar. This is the paid license—calendar preparation features are not available with the free Copilot Chat experience.

Copilot calendar features are available in Outlook for Windows, Mac, and Outlook on the web. You can access Copilot from the Copilot icon in the calendar view for general schedule questions. For meeting-specific preparation, click on a scheduled meeting to see Copilot preparation options.

For government cloud environments, Copilot calendar features are supported in GCC, GCC High, and DoD. Copilot pulls context from your emails, files, and previous meetings to help you prepare—all within your organization’s data boundary. It does not access information outside your tenant.

Preparing for upcoming meetings

This is the most valuable calendar feature for busy professionals. Click on a meeting in your Outlook calendar and look for the Copilot preparation option. Copilot automatically gathers relevant context to help you walk in informed.

Copilot pulls together recent emails you have exchanged with the meeting attendees about the topic, related documents and files that were shared in conversations, and notes and recaps from previous meetings with the same group. All of this context appears in a single view so you do not have to search for it yourself.

Ask Copilot preparation questions to get exactly what you need. Try “What do I need to know for this meeting?” for a broad overview. Ask “What were the key outcomes from our last meeting with this group?” to understand where the conversation left off. Or ask “What emails have I exchanged with attendees about this topic?” to see recent correspondence.

This reduces preparation time from 15 minutes of searching through emails and documents to 30 seconds of reading a Copilot summary.

Here is a government scenario. You have an interagency budget review starting in 10 minutes. Instead of scrambling through your inbox to find the last email thread about budget allocations, ask Copilot what was discussed in the previous session and what emails have come in since. You walk into the meeting fully prepared with the current status, open questions, and relevant numbers fresh in your mind.

Getting calendar insights from Copilot

Beyond meeting preparation, Copilot can answer questions about your schedule in natural language. This is faster than visually scanning your calendar, especially when your week is packed.

Ask questions like “What meetings do I have today?” or “When is my next free block this week?” or “How much time do I have between meetings today?” or “What is my schedule like next Tuesday?” Copilot provides a quick overview so you can make decisions without switching back and forth between views.

This is particularly useful when someone asks you a scheduling question during a call or in a chat. Instead of saying “Let me check my calendar and get back to you,” ask Copilot and get an answer in seconds.

Copilot also helps you identify patterns in your schedule. It can show you how your time is allocated across different types of meetings, spot stretches of back-to-back meetings where you have no breaks, and identify potential focus time blocks that you could protect.

Here is a practical example. A colleague messages you during a call asking when you are available for a 30-minute sync this week. Instead of opening your calendar and scanning each day, ask Copilot to find your next available 30-minute block. You reply with a specific time in seconds.

Managing meetings and conflicts

Copilot helps with several meeting management tasks beyond preparation and scheduling questions.

For scheduling new meetings, Copilot can help you draft the meeting invitation. Provide a prompt like “Schedule a 30-minute check-in with the compliance team next week” and Copilot helps identify available times based on your calendar and drafts the invitation with an appropriate subject and description.

For handling conflicts, ask “Do I have any conflicts this week?” Copilot identifies overlapping meetings so you can resolve them proactively rather than discovering conflicts when you get a double notification. This is especially important in government work where certain meetings have mandatory attendance.

For meeting follow-up, Copilot can help you draft follow-up emails after meetings. Ask “Draft a follow-up email for the security review meeting I had this morning” and Copilot uses the meeting context—including the topic, attendees, and any recap information—to generate a professional follow-up. This closes the loop on meetings without adding another writing task to your plate.

Here is a government scenario. You need to schedule a cross-functional review with representatives from six different offices. Use Copilot to draft the meeting invitation with a clear agenda and purpose. Then check your calendar for conflicts before sending it. After the meeting, use Copilot to draft the follow-up email with action items and next steps.

Close: Make your calendar work for you

Let us recap the three ways Copilot transforms your calendar experience. First, prepare—walk into every meeting with relevant context gathered automatically from your emails, files, and past meetings. Second, insight—get quick answers about your schedule through natural language questions. Third, manage—handle scheduling, conflicts, and follow-ups more efficiently with AI assistance.

Here is what to do next. Before your next meeting, click on it in your calendar and ask Copilot to help you prepare. Try asking “What meetings do I have today?” to see how calendar insights work. After your next meeting, use Copilot to draft a follow-up email.

Copilot turns your calendar from a schedule into a preparation tool. Start using it today.

Sources & References

• Use Copilot to prepare for meetings in Outlook — Step-by-step guide for meeting preparation with Copilot
• Copilot in Outlook — Official documentation for Copilot features in Outlook
• Copilot adoption for GCC — Government cloud adoption resources and feature availability
• Microsoft 365 Copilot overview — Overview of Copilot capabilities across Microsoft 365 applications