Context IQ: The Smart Assistant Enhancing Microsoft 365 Copilot

The Context IQ was announced at Microsoft Ignite in November 2021 as a set of AI-powered capabilities designed to enhance productivity across Microsoft 365 by surfacing relevant information, people, and insights directly in the flow of work.

Context IQ started by supercharging tools like Microsoft Editor, enabling features such as:

• Suggesting relevant files when attaching documents

• Recommending colleagues to tag using @mentions

• Proposing meeting times based on availability

• Surfacing Dynamics 365 data inline via Loop components

It’s now deeply integrated into Microsoft Copilot, helping users reference files, emails, meetings, and people intelligently across apps like Outlook, Teams, and Word.

Empowering Productivity with Context IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot

Context IQ has evolved from supercharging tools like Microsoft Editor—where it enabled features such as suggesting relevant files for attachments, recommending colleagues via @mentions, proposing meeting times, and surfacing Dynamics 365 data via Loop components—to becoming deeply woven into the fabric of Microsoft Copilot. Today, it empowers users to reference files, emails, meetings, and people intelligently across Outlook, Teams, and Word.

At its core, Context IQ is an AI-powered suite that revolutionizes how you interact with Microsoft 365. Here’s how it transforms your workflow:

Efficient Search and Seamless Insertion: Instead of manually hunting for files or contacts, you can issue targeted prompts that let Context IQ do the work—quickly surfacing the right resources or people at the right time.

Trustworthy, Grounded Prompts: Your queries can now remain anchored to reliable and relevant data sources, ensuring that Copilot delivers accurate, context-aware results tailored to your needs.

Context IQ in Microsoft 365 Copilot is like having a smart assistant that knows your work habits, recent activity, and organizational context—and uses that to make your prompts sharper and more relevant. Here's a deeper dive into how it works and where it shines:

🧠 What Context IQ Does in Microsoft 365 Copilot

1. Grounds Prompts in Real-Time Work Context

• Suggests files, emails, meetings, and people based on your recent activity.

• Enhances Copilot’s responses by anchoring them to actual work content—no need to manually upload or search.

2. Dynamic Referencing via Slash Commands

• Type / in Copilot Chat to open the Context IQ menu.

• You can then search and attach: Microsoft 365 files (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDFs) Emails and calendar events SharePoint pages and OneDrive folders People you've recently interacted with

3. Smart Suggestions While You Type

• As you begin writing a prompt, Context IQ proactively suggests relevant content—like a recent proposal, meeting notes, or collaborator.

• Helps reduce friction and context-switching during multitasking.

4. Advanced Filtering

• Use file type filters and people refiners to narrow down suggestions in the Files tab.

• Especially useful when working across large document libraries or collaborating with multiple teams.

5. Third-Party Data Integration

• Through Microsoft Graph Connectors, Context IQ can surface data from external systems like Salesforce, ServiceNow, or internal CRMs.

• This means Copilot can reason over both Microsoft 365 and connected enterprise data sources.

Context IQ is a smart, AI-powered feature built into Microsoft 365 and Copilot that helps you work more efficiently by surfacing relevant information—right when you need it.

🧠 What Context IQ Does

• Predictive Suggestions: It uses Microsoft Graph to analyze your work habits, recent files, emails, meetings, and conversations to suggest relevant content.

• In-Context Assistance: While writing in Outlook, Word, or Teams, it can suggest files, people, or calendar events based on what you're typing.

• @Mentions with Intelligence: Type “@” and Context IQ will recommend people or files you've recently interacted with—no need to search manually.

• Copilot Integration: In Microsoft 365 Copilot, it enhances grounding by letting you reference files, emails, meetings, and SharePoint pages directly in your prompt.

🔍 Where It Shows Up

💡 Why It Matters for You

As an IT consultant and Copilot power user, Context IQ helps:

• Speed up client documentation by auto-suggesting relevant files and contacts.

• Reduce context-switching during multitasking.

• Enhance Copilot prompts with precise references to your work content.

Getting Started with Context IQ in Microsoft Copilot

 Context IQ (CIQ) is an AI feature in Copilot that improves access to information, people, and conversations for better collaboration. When used, CIQ intelligently suggests relevant content from your files, emails, meetings, and other Microsoft 365 services, allowing you to quickly insert links to files, contacts, meetings, and emails.

To add links to Microsoft 365 files, reference individuals, or include calendar events and emails, please follow the steps below:

·         Navigate to Microsoft365.com/copilot and select work mode using the toggle switch.

·         To access CIQ, open the Copilot pane and select one of the available options:

·         Click the Add content button.

·         Type / and begin entering the name of the individual, file, meeting, or email you wish to link.

·         Tabs give access to people, Microsoft 365 files, meetings, and emails. CIQ suggests relevant items when you select a tab.

·         Select from the people, files, meetings, and emails provided.

Note: When a prompt does not reference a specific file, person, or meeting, Copilot will select the most relevant data source for its response. This may include available work content.

Referencing people

CIQ recommends contacts whose names or emails closely match your input, factoring in recent and frequent interactions across Teams, email, meetings, and shared files. Rankings update multiple times daily.

Meeting References

CIQ recommends meetings based on your RSVPs and recent or upcoming events, matching the meeting title or organizer's name.

Referencing emails

CIQ shows relevant emails based on your interactions, including mentions, flags, focused emails, and matched subjects, senders, keywords, or recipients.

 Referencing files

CIQ recommends files based on recent uploads, openings, modifications, shares, or interactions on OneDrive for Business. Suggestions appear within minutes and also factor in file names, types, and authors.

Note: In addition to typing /, you can also reference files using copy and paste or drag and drop

• Local files: To reference a local file, select the Upload from device   button. ​You can then select a file from your local device to reference. Once the file is selected, a copy will be sent to OneDrive for Business.

• Cloud files: To reference a file available on a local server, select the Attach cloud files   icon. You can attach either a file or an entire folder to your prompt.

Note: You can only reference up to ten files or pages within a SharePoint site.

Referencing SharePoint sites

CIQ shows SharePoint sites and pages that users have recently accessed or that have been shared with them. Selecting a site scopes the prompt to its specific contents.

Note: Up to ten files or pages can be referenced within the selected SharePoint site.

Referencing Connectors

Graph Connector data from your organization is available in Copilot prompts through the ContextIQ menu. Enabled Connectors can be found under the All and Other tabs by typing / in Copilot Chat.

Supported Connectors include Confluence, Jira, and ServiceNow.