Memory & personalization: teach it who you are.
Out of the box, Copilot knows your files but not your preferences — every draft starts generic. The power move is deliberately teaching it how you work: your voice, your defaults, your standing context. Small setup, permanent dividend.
01 What Copilot can remember
Copilot picks up on your patterns and lets you state preferences directly — tone, format defaults, standing facts ("I manage the northern region," "my reports go to Priya," "keep drafts under 150 words"). Where a control exists in settings, use it; where it doesn't, stating preferences at the start of work sessions and correcting drafts consistently trains the same behavior conversation by conversation. The principle is what matters: stop re-explaining yourself and start accumulating.
02 The personalization stack
Personalization is working when the FIRST draft is usable — not the third. Track it for a week: if you're still making the same correction twice, promote that correction to a standing preference. Every repeated fix is a preference you haven't stated yet.
03 Maintenance: personalization rots
You changed roles; your customers changed; last year's tone isn't this year's. Quarterly, ask: "What do you understand about my preferences and standing context? List it." Read the list like a briefing doc — correct what drifted, delete what expired. Stale personalization is worse than none, because it's wrong confidently and in your voice.
04 The privacy line
Personalization lives in your work account, in your employer's tenant. Reasonable rule: teach it everything about how you work, nothing about your life outside it. Keep the personal assistant personal — that's what your own tools (and our other tracks) are for.
Run the setup stack top to bottom — voice, defaults, standing context, boundaries. Thirty minutes. Then request a draft you'd normally correct heavily and grade the first attempt.
Open Copilot →This week's challenge
One week of first-draft grading: every Copilot draft, score usable-as-is or needed-the-same-old-fix. Every repeated fix becomes a stated preference that day. By Friday your grade curve is the proof this lesson worked.