‘Disable This Via Settings’—Microsoft AI Starts Reading Your Emails And Chats

While not as “creepy” as Recall, Microsoft’s latest AI update has some of the same echoes. The tech giant has started rolling out a Copilot update to learn all about you by reading your emails and chats to better personalize its services. In a new update, users are told to ask Microsoft’s AI “what do you know about me,” and then to delete anything that goes too far.

The change is rolling out now, Microsoft says in an Oct. 26 update, affecting eligible Microsoft 365 work and school accounts. It uses emails, Teams chats and meeting transcripts, even those you haven’t specifically asked Copilot to analyse. It’s a significant update and will change how Microsoft’s AI builds a picture of who you are.

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Microsoft confirms you can delete sensitive data or fully “disable this via settings.” The company’s own privacy documentation confirms the information caught up in this new AI net includes private communications from Outlook emails, Teams chats and meeting transcripts, as well as usage information and user profiles. It’s a powerful dataset.

Copilot has always been able to access your work emails and chats to answer questions. But this goes further. It can now learn about your priorities, your relationships and your preferences. You don’t need to explicitly tell it what to remember. Microsoft even tells users there’s a simple way to discover what its AI has learned. After asking Copilot: “What do you know about me?” you will see a summary of the information it holds and you can also ask it to forget specific details.

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Asking AI to help tune your writing, summarize your emails or tidy up your spreadsheets is one thing, allowing it to learn about you by inferring insights from your emailing and messaging is another. Again, this comes down to individual red lines.