MC1130610: Microsoft Outlook: Enhanced search experience with Copilot across Web, Mac, and Mobile
Microsoft Outlook introduces Immersive Search with a Copilot side pane across platforms, providing AI-generated summaries from emails, Teams, and documents after searches. Available to Copilot-licensed tenants, it rolls out worldwide by late September 2025, requires no admin setup, and enhances p...
Introduction
We’re introducing Immersive Search, a new experience across Outlook for Web, Mac, iOS, Android, and the new Outlook for Windows. After performing a search, users will see an entry point to the Microsoft Copilot side pane, which presents a highly relevant, AI-generated summary based on their query. This summary includes content from emails, Teams messages, and documents—helping users quickly understand and act on their information.
This feature uses Microsoft 365 Copilot with an Outlook-specific experience and is available only to tenants with Copilot licenses.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 498319.
When this will happen
- General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out in early September and expect to complete by late September 2025.
How this will affect your organization
Once rolled out, users will see a new entry point to the Copilot side pane after executing a search in Outlook. This pane surfaces AI-generated summaries, improving productivity and reducing time spent navigating search results.
Copilot side pane in Outlook search results:
Key details:
- The Copilot side pane appears only after a user performs a search and selects the entry point on the search results page (SERP).
- Summaries include all content supported by Microsoft 365 Copilot, such as indexed emails, Teams messages, attachments, and shared files from OneDrive or SharePoint.
- This feature is on by default and does not require admin configuration.
- There are no changes to existing DLP, eDiscovery, or retention policies.
- Admins cannot control access to this feature via policy settings or Entra ID group membership.
- There is currently no setting in the Microsoft 365 admin center or Outlook user settings to manage or disable this experience.
- There is no way to monitor or audit usage of this feature through Microsoft Purview or Microsoft 365 audit logs.
What you can do to prepare
No action is required at this time. However, we recommend informing users about this new experience to reduce confusion and help desk inquiries.
You may also want to review your organization's Copilot licensing and ensure users are aware of how to use the Copilot side pane effectively.
Compliance considerations
| Does this change store new customer data? | AI-generated summaries may be temporarily cached to improve performance, but they are not permanently stored. |
| Does this change alter how existing customer data is processed, stored, or accessed? | Emails, Teams messages, and documents are processed by large language models (LLMs) to generate summaries based on user search queries. |
| Does this change introduce or significantly modify AI or machine learning capabilities that interact with customer data? | This feature introduces generative AI capabilities that analyze and summarize user content across Outlook and connected Microsoft 365 services. |
| Does this change provide end users with a new way of interacting with generative AI? | Users can interact with Copilot summaries directly in the Outlook interface after performing a search. |