The AI-fication of Outlook is Here
Tech giant Microsoft plans to rebuild Outlook from scratch for an AI-driven future.
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For decades, Outlook has been the quiet backbone of office life — the place where meetings are planned, emails pile up, and to-do lists never end. Now, Microsoft wants to rebuild it with AI.
The company has put Gaurav Sareen, a corporate vice president, in charge of a bold new mission: to tear down Outlook and create it again “from the ground up” for the age of artificial intelligence. In an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Sareen said the goal is to turn Outlook into a kind of “body double” — an AI assistant that reads your messages, writes replies, sets up meetings, and manages your day.
“Instead of bolting AI onto old products, we have the chance to reimagine Outlook from the start,” Sareen wrote. He’s taking over from Lynn Ayres, who is on sabbatical, and stepping in at a time when Outlook faces both technical problems and strong competition from Google and other workplace tools.
The idea sounds ambitious, but also risky. Sareen wants teams to move fast, testing new features every week instead of every few months. He says the company must “find the courage to let go of old ways of working.” That’s easier said than done, especially for a product used daily by hundreds of millions of people across the world.
Microsoft has already been struggling with “One Outlook,” a project meant to merge its Windows, Mac, and web versions into a single platform. Many users have complained that the new version still lacks key features. Now, Sareen’s plan adds another layer of change — one that could frustrate longtime users if the new AI tools don’t work smoothly.
Inside Microsoft, not everyone is convinced that the company’s big AI push will pay off. Some employees have privately expressed doubts about whether pouring so much money into AI is worth it. Sareen, however, is confident. “Next year, every product will claim to be AI native,” he wrote. “But we’re going to be the team that truly rebuilds for AI, not just adds buzzwords.”
The stakes are high. Outlook is one of Microsoft’s most important products, bringing in billions of dollars each year. A poorly executed overhaul could send business customers to its competitors.
Microsoft is facing another problem. On Monday, Australia’s competition regulator sued the company, accusing it of misleading 2.7 million customers. The regulator said Microsoft pushed people toward more expensive Microsoft 365 plans that included its AI tool, Copilot, without clearly telling them that a cheaper plan without Copilot was still available. That cheaper option, the regulator said, only appeared after customers started the cancellation process — something that might violate consumer law.
It’s a tricky moment for Microsoft. On one hand, it’s promising a future where AI makes work easier and more human. On the other, it’s being accused of hiding key information from its users.
Whether Microsoft can actually rebuild Outlook without breaking what people love about it will decide not only the future of the world’s most-used email app, but also how far AI can really go in changing the way we work.
