Purpose

To use Copilot to reduce reading time and surface decisions, risks and required actions — withoutreplacing proper inbox management discipline.

✔ Pre-Conditions (must be true)

Before attempting summaries:

Executive has a Copilot license
EA has appropriate delegate or full mailbox access
Organisation has approved Copilot under IT governance
Sensitive/confidential folders are understood and respected

If the EA can open the executive mailbox legitimately, Copilot can operate within it.

✔ What Copilot can do well

Copilot is strong at:

Summarising long threads
Extracting action items
Identifying deadlines
Highlighting unresolved questions
Producing “what did I miss?” summaries

It is helpful for:

Returning from leave
High-volume days
Board/project-heavy weeks

What Copilot does not replace

Copilot does not:

Prioritise strategically
Understand political nuance
Replace triage thinking
Make judgement calls on sensitivity
Fix poor inbox structure
If the inbox is chaotic, the summary will be chaotic.

Recommended EA prompts

Use focused prompts. Examples:

“Summarise required actions and deadlines from unread emails.”
“List emails requiring a response from the executive.”
“Summarise key decisions made in the last 48 hours.”
“Highlight risks or escalations mentioned.”

Avoid vague prompts like: “Summarise everything.”
Precision produces better output.

Best practice workflow

Triage first (quick scan, remove noise).
Use Copilot on high-volume clusters.
Extract actions into Planner or task system.
Confirm judgement before escalating to executive.
Use summary as briefing tool — not replacement for thinking.

Governance Reminder

Copilot only sees what the logged-in user is permitted to see.
It does not bypass security.
It operates inside the Microsoft 365 tenant.
Always follow company policy regarding sensitive content.

Using MS Copilot to Summarise an Executive Inbox in MS Outlook