How to Stop Copilot from Writing “I Hope You Are Doing Well” in Email Drafts

Like many professionals, I use Copilot in Outlook to boost productivity and write clearer, more effective emails. But there’s a problem: Copilot’s drafts are full of overly friendly American-style greetings and closings that don’t match how I actually write or how my European (Dutch) colleagues communicate.

You know the ones: “I hope you are doing well” (or in Dutch, “Ik hoop dat het goed met je gaat”) and closings like “I’m looking forward to working together to realize this amazing opportunity with you.”

The good news? You can fix this.

Two Ways to Adjust Copilot’s Tone of Voice

You can do this using 1) one-off email settings or 2) personalized tone-of-voice instructions.

Method 1: Use the built-in tone settings

The quickest option is to adjust the tone each time you draft an email. When Copilot generates a draft, you can simply instruct it to rewrite using a different tone:

1. Let Copilot generate your initial draft
2. Click on the tone options or type a follow-up instruction
3. Select or type “short and friendly” or “brief and professional.”
4. Copilot will regenerate the email in that style

This works well for one-off emails, but you’ll need to adjust the tone manually each time.

Method 2: Set Up Personalized Instructions (Recommended)

I prefer this approach. It’s a one-time setup that ensures Copilot consistently matches your communication style without needing to adjust it every time.

Requirements

You’ll need a Copilot license that allows AI access to your Office 365 email and documents in SharePoint or Teams.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Go to https://copilot.microsoft.com/ and select Work
2. Start a new chat and paste the following prompt:

I want you to analyze all my past chats, emails, documents, and other interactions to accurately determine my personal tone of voice, preferred word choice, and sentence structure. Based on this analysis, create a custom instruction for Copilot that ensures all generated responses match my natural communication style as closely as possible, including my typical tone, phrasing, and way of expressing ideas.

If needed, add: “Avoid overly polite introductions and American pleasantries.”

3. Copilot will generate a custom instruction based on your communication history
4. Copy this generated instruction
5. Open Outlook for Web (https://outlook.office365.com/)
6. Click Copilot (right side), then click the three dots (see image below)
7. Go to Personalization and select Custom Instructions
8. Paste your generated tone of voice instructions (see image below)

The Result

Your emails will now sound more like you: professional, direct, and authentic. Say goodbye to “I hope you are doing well.”

Example Custom Instruction

Here is my custom instruction:

Write short, sober, and direct: start immediately with the decision or action, use active language, keep context to one line maximum, use bullets where needed, include a clear owner and date, avoid small talk or American-style pleasantries, keep a professional tone with optional dry humor, and end with a short functional closing line.

This will make my email go from this:

Once again, thank you SO MUCH for your incredible time, energy, and brilliance today — I truly cannot express how deeply grateful and unbelievably EXCITED I am about everything we’re about to achieve together!!! 🚀✨
Please don’t hesitate for even a single moment to reach out if you need anything at all — day, night, weekends, holidays — I’m ALWAYS here and absolutely thrilled to support you in any way humanly possible!!!
Wishing you an absolutely spectacular rest of your day filled with positivity, inspiration, and countless wonderful opportunities!!! 🌈🙌
Warmest, kindest, brightest regards imaginable,
Robbrecht 😄🙏✨

To this:

Let me know what you prefer.
Actions are listed above; please respond before [date].
Thanks.
Robbrecht

Image credit: https://www.wikihow.com/I-Hope-You-Are-Doing-Well