| November 12, 2024
Microsoft announced a new personalization feature for Outlook, allowing users to leverage generative AI to create custom themes based on personal preferences. Dubbed “Themes by Copilot,” this AI-powered feature is accessible to those with a Copilot Pro consumer subscription or business accounts with Copilot enabled, across platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and the web.
With this feature, Outlook users can craft themes inspired by over 100 global locations or even by their own locale. Custom themes can dynamically update at intervals set by the user—whether every few hours, daily, weekly, or monthly. Additionally, themes can be rendered in various artistic styles, such as realistic, oil painting, or cartoon.
As Microsoft describes in their blog post, “If you’ve enabled location permissions in Outlook, the My Location theme will bring you imagery uniquely inspired by your locale, dynamically updating as you head out the door on a trip or vacation. Similarly, a dynamic theme based on the weather would be updated to reflect the current weather conditions where you are.” Users can access AI-generated themes through Outlook’s Appearance Settings, giving a new layer of personalization to their email experience.
Expanding AI-Driven Customization Across Microsoft Apps
Though this feature doesn’t offer additional functionality, it allows for a fun and creative way to personalize Outlook—similar to how one might decorate their workspace. Microsoft’s addition of AI-powered themes gives it an edge over Gmail, which currently lacks similar AI-driven visual customization, though Chrome does.
This announcement closely follows Microsoft’s expansion of AI features to other Windows 11 apps, including Notepad and Paint. For Windows Insiders, Notepad now offers a “Rewrite” tool for rephrasing sentences, adjusting tone, and changing content length with AI assistance. Paint users are also gaining access to new image-editing tools, such as a Generative Fill feature for making changes via text prompts and a Generative Erase feature to remove unwanted objects.
Currently, these features are in preview on Windows 11 in the U.S., France, the U.K., Canada, Italy, and Germany.
