Microsoft Replaces Outlook Meeting Insights With Paid Copilot Feature

Microsoft is retiring the Meeting Insights feature in Outlook and replacing it with the Copilot-powered “Prepare for this meeting” experience.

The retirement will begin in mid-August 2026 and should finish by early September 2026. Microsoft announced the change through Message Center advisory MC1430531.

What Meeting Insights Does in Outlook

Meeting Insights is enabled by default for Outlook meeting invitations.

The feature displays recently modified emails and files that may relate to an upcoming meeting. Outlook shows the suggested content privately inside the meeting invitation, meaning other attendees cannot see it.

The current Meeting Insights feature does not use large language models.

Microsoft Is Replacing It With a Copilot Feature

Microsoft will replace Meeting Insights with the Copilot-powered “Prepare for this meeting” experience.

The replacement can generate a meeting summary, collect relevant context, and suggest possible action items before the meeting begins. Unlike Meeting Insights, the new experience relies on large language model technology.

Microsoft positions the Copilot feature as a more advanced way to prepare for meetings without manually reviewing related emails, documents, and previous discussions.

The Replacement Requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot License

“Prepare for this meeting” is only available to customers with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

Organizations without Copilot licenses will lose access to this type of automated meeting preparation after Microsoft retires Meeting Insights.

The change means Microsoft is replacing a feature available by default with an alternative that requires an additional paid subscription.

Which Outlook Users Will Be Affected?

Microsoft says the retirement will affect Outlook customers across all supported platforms.

However, the advisory does not specifically mention Outlook Classic. It remains unclear whether Outlook Classic users will experience the same changes or whether Microsoft will handle the older desktop application differently.

Organizations Must Consider the Additional Cost

Organizations that rely on Meeting Insights will need to decide whether the replacement functionality justifies purchasing Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses.

Companies that do not subscribe will need to prepare for the feature’s removal before Microsoft completes the retirement process in early September 2026.

In other news, Microsoft is finally adding a unified inbox to Outlook for Windows, while New Outlook still lags behind Outlook Classic in notification performance.

Via Neowin