Join me exploring Microsoft Copilot through each letter of the alphabet. This week, P is for Personalisation.

I didn’t know this was possible until someone at Microsoft told me. Which means there’s a decent chance you don’t know either. 

We hear often that giving an AI tool all the relevant context it needs to know is what will generate the most useful answer. But giving it all the background info all of the time is frankly a little bit boring, and exhausting. Turns out Copilot has a bit of a shortcut to this!  

The thing nobody told me about

Did you know that Copilot can actually ‘get to know’ you. Not in a vague “it learns your preferences over time” kind of way, but in a deliberate, you-sit-down-and-tell-it-about-yourself kind of way. And once you do, that changes how it responds to you across everything, not just in one chat.

I stumbled onto this because someone at Microsoft shared a prompt with me:

“Ask me 10 questions to get to know me better.”

That’s the prompt. Simple. (I like simple.) 

The 10 questions

I think I was probably expecting the questions to be along the lines of “What’s your favourite ice cream?” (Pistachio, if you’re interested) or the dreaded “Which animal would you describe yourself as?” urgh. 

Instead Copilot came up with ten questions that prompted me to do give some proper insight into how I tick: 

1. What part of your work gives you the most energy, even on weeks when everything else is a bit chaos?
2. When people come to you for help, what do they usually need you for (even if they don’t phrase it that way)?
3. What’s something you’re quietly very good at that isn’t obvious from your job title?
4. If you suddenly had a free month with no expectations, how would you actually spend it (not the aspirational version)?
5. What frustrates you more than it probably should? (Petty answers welcome.)
6. What does a “great day” look like for you, from start to finish?
7. What’s a skill or interest you’d love to develop if time and energy weren’t constant limiting factors?
8. When things go wrong or you feel stuck, what usually helps you reset?
9. What do you want to be known for in the next couple of years – professionally or personally?
10. What’s one thing people often get wrong about you at first glance?

I spent some time writing some honest answers. You can be as brutal as you like with an AI in a way that seems too exposing with a human. (Although your answers can be seen by your org’s admin – see D is for Data and B is for Be Careful!) 

What happened next

After I answered, Copilot gave me a little commentary on my answers. Then I asked Copilot to remember the summary. 

A little ‘memory updated’ notification appeared that I’d not seen before:

Note: Copilot won’t save anything to memory unless you explicitly ask it to. (It told me that, too.) 

For context, here’s a flavour of what I actually told it:

I love building processes and systems – but once they’re working, I get bored and want to move on to the next thing. 

When people come to me for help, it’s usually organisation. 

On a great day, my systems are humming, I’m prepared for meetings, and I get some focus time to actually build something. 

And question 10 – what do people get wrong about you at first glance?

“Honestly? People can think what they like about me. I used to people-please on the reg but no longer. Comes with age, I think. I’m nearly 40.”

What changed

I noticed a difference in Copilot’s responses to me almost straight away. 

I told Copilot I’m moving into more of an operator role at work; getting on top of systems, process, and making things run properly. Since then, the way it phrases answers has shifted.

It leads with operator-relevant angles. It flags when I’m the bottleneck. It gives me feedback like this:

That’s not a generic Copilot response. That’s Copilot talking to me specifically, using the context I gave it, without me having to constantly re-type it. 

It even affected the comedy roasts of my week; 

It behaves the same wherever I’m using Copilot, whether that’s chat, Outlook, or Planner Agent. (More on that one in a future blog!) Responses tuned to how I work and my actual role. Highlighting actions and behaviours that I’m too involved to notice. 

This is not some dramatic ‘game-changer’ (if I had a pound for every time I’d heard that phrase about an AI tool…) it’s more like the difference between a colleague who knows you and one who doesn’t. The one who knows you doesn’t need the backstory every time. They just… factor it in.

Then there was the Friday side hustle moment.

A few weeks after the 10 questions, Copilot mentioned my “Friday side hustle time” in passing. I had a brief, mildly unsettling moment of: WTF?? I don’t remember telling it that. (Yes, I do usually spend Fridays working on a ‘side hustle’.) 

Turns out I had told it that. I’d just forgotten.

Which is its own interesting little lesson: when personalisation works really well, it can feel slightly eerie even when nothing weird is happening. 

Where this all lives

If you want to find, edit, or manage what Copilot knows about you, you’ll find it in the three dots (of course – that’s where Microsoft hides all the good stuff).

Click on settings 

Then the personalisation tab will give you the option to ‘manage saved memories’

The other stuff in here is pretty useful too. 

Custom instructions – this is where you can add details about your preferences so Copilot responds your way. Think of it as your personal brief, like “always use UK English” or “talk to me like a pirate”. You can turn it on or off.

Work profile – Copilot uses data from your M365 environment to give more relevant answers. You can view what it’s drawing on here.

Saved memories – this is where the output of your 10 questions exercise lives, along with anything else you’ve asked Copilot to remember about you. You can view it, edit it, add to it, and delete anything you’re not happy with. You can also just chat with Copilot and ask it to change or erase memories. 

Chat history (Frontier) – lets Copilot use your past chats to personalise responses. Currently rolling out via the Frontier early access programme, so you may or may not have this yet.

It’s reassuring to know that you can do a bit of brain surgery on Copilot; with these options you can see exactly what it knows, correct anything that’s wrong, and remove anything you’d rather it forgot.

Try it yourself

The prompt is simple: “Ask me 10 questions to get to know me better.”

Answer honestly. Ask Copilot to remember. Then go to Chat Settings → Personalisation → Saved memories and see what it stored.

If you want to build on it over time you can, and probably should! Add things manually. Update things as your role or priorities change. Think of it as a living brief that you maintain, rather than a one-off exercise.

The 10 questions approach was gifted to me by Alev Tamer, Snr Partner Solution Architect at Microsoft who is kind enough to share cool stuff like this with me at regular intervals – thanks Alev! 

TLDR: Copilot can ‘get to know’ you. Start with “ask me 10 questions to get to know me better.” Answer honestly. Ask it to save a summary. Then watch how subtly but noticeably the quality of its responses shifts. Your memories live in Chat Settings → Personalisation, where you can view, edit, and delete anything at any time. It’s a little bit powerful and, occasionally, a tiny bit uncanny. Worth doing.

What did Copilot ask you – have the saved memories made responses more helpful? Drop it in the comments. 

Useful links:

• Personalise what Microsoft 365 Copilot remembers | Microsoft Support