Most meetings can be arranged through email. Meetings can be brief, At the very least. Microsoft’s new AI feature for Microsoft Teams suggests asking follow-up questions to keep the conversation going, despite its apparent rejection of the idea. ”
Microsoft’s Copilot Will Prompt Follow-Up Questions During Teams Meetings
Much like Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot is an” everyday AI companion “according to Microsoft Support , intended to simplify tasks so that you can focus on meaningful work over menial work. While efficiency is the goal, Microsoft’s latest Copilot update for Teams, its virtual meeting app for Windows and Mac, may actually encourage longer meetings
Announced via Microsoft 365 Roadmap , the Copilot sidebar will soon suggest follow-up questions automatically during a Teams meeting:
According to Microsoft Support Suggest follow-up questions Already exists as a Copilot prompt in Teams. However, the AI assistant will soon produce them automatically after any response. So, if you ask Copilot to clarify a team member’s perspective or list action items, it will both respond to your request and supply thoughtful follow-ups
The Copilot update is still in development and is set to roll out in March 2025.
The Role of AI in Meetings
If virtual assistants butting into your meetings sounds familiar, it’s because Microsoft Teams isn’t the only app touting its AI -powered sidebar. Launched in October 2024. Zoom’s AI C ompanion 2.0 offers in-meeting tools To help you understand what’s being discussed. Like Zoom’s companion, Microsoft’s Copilot produces a transcription of the meeting, and can even help catch you up if you’re running late
Ideally, AI meeting tools can ground you in a meeting and clarify next steps. At best, they ensure meetings aren’t actually a waste of time. However, they could also encourage more multitasking. After all, if your AI companion is giving you the follow-up questions to ask, you don’t actually have to be present to synthesize the information for yourself
To me, these tools risk enabling absent-mindedness. We’re likely to end up in the same place in which we started: did this meeting really need to happen, or could this have been an email? With meeting transcriptions, the line between a meeting and an email is increasingly faint
That said, not all meetings are created equal. Hopefully, Microsoft’s latest Copilot update actually extends meetings in a meaningful way. If a follow-up question encourages colleagues to get the clarity they really need from one another, then maybe that beats an email after all