Copilot in Outlook: Coaching and Tone

Overview

In government communication, tone matters. An email that sounds too demanding can damage a working relationship. One that is too vague can cause confusion or delay action. And when you are drafting important communications to leadership, cross-agency partners, or external stakeholders, getting the tone right is critical but hard to judge in your own writing.

Copilot’s coaching feature in Outlook acts as a communication advisor. It analyzes your draft and provides specific, actionable feedback on how your email sounds, how clear it is, and how the reader is likely to feel after reading it. This video shows you how to use coaching to communicate with confidence.

What You’ll Learn

• Access: What coaching is and how to find it in Outlook
• Tone: How to get feedback on how your email sounds to the reader
• Clarity: How to improve readability and adjust formality
• Habit: When and how to use coaching for maximum impact

Script

Hook: Say what you mean, the way you mean it

Have you ever sent an email that was misread? The tone came across as too demanding when you meant to be direct. The message felt blunt when you were just trying to be efficient. Or a recipient took offense at something you did not intend to be offensive at all.

In government work, where email is the backbone of coordination across teams, agencies, and leadership levels, miscommunication through tone is a real and common problem. And the worst part is that you cannot hear your own tone the way the reader does.

Copilot’s coaching feature in Outlook solves this. It reads your draft and gives you specific feedback on tone, clarity, and sentiment before you hit send. In the next five minutes, you will learn how to use coaching to communicate better in every email that matters.

What is Copilot coaching and how to access it

Copilot coaching is different from Copilot’s drafting feature. Drafting generates new content for you. Coaching reviews what you have already written and provides suggestions for improvement. Think of it as a second pair of eyes that focuses specifically on how your message will land with the reader.

To access coaching, write or edit your email as you normally would. When you are ready for feedback, click the Copilot icon in the email toolbar and select “Coaching by Copilot.” Copilot analyzes your draft and returns suggestions within a few seconds.

Coaching is available in Outlook for Windows, Mac, and Outlook on the web. For government cloud environments, it is supported in GCC, GCC High, and DoD. Your email content is processed within your organization’s compliance boundary, so coaching works within the same data protections as the rest of your Microsoft 365 environment.

Getting tone suggestions from Copilot

When you click “Coaching by Copilot,” Copilot analyzes your draft across three dimensions.

First, tone—how your email sounds to the reader. Is it direct, warm, formal, casual, or something in between? Copilot tells you how your words are likely to be perceived.

Second, clarity—how easy your message is to understand. Are your sentences clear and well-structured? Is your main point easy to find? Are there passages that might confuse the reader?

Third, sentiment—how the reader is likely to feel after reading your email. Will they feel informed and respected, or pressured and criticized?

Copilot provides specific, actionable suggestions rather than vague advice. Instead of just saying “make it nicer,” you might see feedback like “Your opening may come across as demanding—consider softening the request” or “The third paragraph contains complex sentence structures that may be hard to follow—simplify for clarity” or “Your closing sounds abrupt—consider adding a brief acknowledgment of the recipient’s time.”

Here is a government scenario. You draft a response to another team that missed a project deadline. You want to hold them accountable but also maintain a collaborative relationship. Run coaching before sending. Copilot identifies that your second paragraph sounds accusatory and suggests rephrasing it to focus on the impact and next steps rather than blame. The result is a message that is still direct but lands better.

Improving clarity and adjusting formality

Copilot’s clarity suggestions help you write emails that are easier to understand. It identifies jargon that may not be clear to all readers, flags overly complex sentences, and spots ambiguous phrasing that could be interpreted multiple ways. It suggests simpler alternatives and clearer sentence structures so your main point comes through on the first read.

Adjusting formality is particularly important in government email. Different situations call for different levels of formality. Communications to senior leadership, interagency correspondence, and emails to external partners typically require a formal tone. Peer-to-peer coordination and internal team updates can be professional but more approachable. Quick status updates and routine coordination can be direct and concise.

Copilot identifies when your formality level may not match your audience and suggests adjustments. If you are writing to a Deputy Secretary using casual phrasing, coaching will flag it. If you are being overly formal in a quick note to a teammate, it will suggest loosening up.

Coaching is also iterative. Make changes based on the initial feedback, then run coaching again to check your revisions. Repeat until you are satisfied that the tone, clarity, and sentiment all align with your intent.

Here is a practical example. You are writing to a Deputy Secretary about a program milestone. You draft it quickly between meetings. Coaching identifies two instances of informal language and a paragraph where your main accomplishment is buried after three sentences of context. You restructure the email, run coaching again, and confirm that the tone is appropriately formal and the key message is front and center.

Using coaching before sending important emails

Not every email needs coaching. For quick “sounds good” replies and routine scheduling messages, just send them. But certain types of emails benefit enormously from a coaching review before you hit send.

Use coaching for communications to senior leadership where tone and professionalism matter. Use it for cross-agency or interagency emails where you are establishing or maintaining relationships. Use it for emails addressing sensitive topics like project delays, budget overruns, or personnel issues. Use it for first-time communications with new stakeholders where first impressions count. And use it for any email you know will be forwarded widely.

Build a simple rule: if an email takes you more than five minutes to write, run coaching before sending. The extra 30 seconds it takes to get feedback can save you from a miscommunication that takes days to resolve.

Coaching acts as a second pair of eyes that catches things you miss after staring at your own writing. It is especially valuable when you are writing under time pressure or when emotions are involved.

One important note for government professionals: coaching does not replace human review for classified or legally sensitive communications. It is a writing aid, not a compliance tool.

Close: Communicate with confidence

Let us recap the three dimensions Copilot coaching evaluates. Tone—understand how your email sounds to the reader. Clarity—ensure your message is easy to understand and your main point is prominent. Sentiment—know how the reader is likely to feel after reading your message.

Here is what to do next. Pick an important email you need to send today and run coaching before you send it. Pay attention to the specific suggestions and apply the ones that make sense. Then make coaching a habit for any high-stakes communication.

Copilot coaching helps you say what you mean, the way you mean it. Start using it today.

Sources & References

• Coaching by Copilot in Outlook — Step-by-step guide for using the coaching feature
• 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