Connect Outlook

How do you connect an AI agent to Outlook or Microsoft 365?

To connect an AI agent to Outlook or Microsoft 365, type your address into Muzau and accept the Microsoft sign-in: you give no password. A Muzau agent then sees the emails received and sent from the connection onward, and writes from your inbox: what it sends lands in your Sent folder, and no email is marked as read. You choose which emails it handles, and what waits for your approval.

Why connect your Outlook inbox rather than forward your emails

Without your inbox, an agent writes from a Muzau address, something like contact@….muzau.fr: the customer sees an address they do not know, and a new address may land in spam. Forwarding your emails is not enough: on Microsoft 365, forwarding to outside addresses is turned off by default, only the administrator can open it, and the agent still cannot write from your inbox.

Once connected, the Outlook inbox sends the agent's emails from your address, with its reputation, and customers' replies come back to where your team already reads them. Your team keeps the relationship and the decisions; the agent handles, alongside it, the replies and follow-ups you hand over.

How the agent goes about it

Input

Your Outlook, Microsoft 365, Outlook.com or Hotmail address

It does

Connects through the Microsoft sign-in, rereads the inbox, handles the emails you hand over

It delivers

Replies and follow-ups sent from your address, filed in your Sent folder

Connect Outlook with the Microsoft sign-in, no password

On the Tools page, you type your address. Muzau recognizes that it is with Microsoft and shows only the Microsoft sign-in: you accept the access on Microsoft's page. No password passes through Muzau, and all your agents use the connection afterward. Microsoft may show "unverified publisher", and some companies ask for their administrator's approval. For now, only one Microsoft inbox can be connected per company. A Gmail inbox goes through an app password instead: see connecting Gmail without your usual password.

What Muzau sees in your Outlook inbox

Muzau sees the emails received and sent from the connection onward, and does not handle any earlier email on its own. It marks no email as read. Of attachments, it reads only the name, and the text of an email that no agent handles is not read, unless you turn on sorting, which reads them to file them. As soon as an agent replies to the inbox's emails, the inbox is reread every minute; otherwise, every quarter of an hour.

The agent only takes the emails you hand over

The agent only replies to the emails you hand over: those matching a rule (sender, recipient, subject, attachment) whose "it replies" box is ticked, unticked by default, or those that sorting gives it. With sorting, a request that no agent handles comes back to you. On the Autonomy page, you choose what goes out on its own and what waits in "To approve". Even with autonomy, a reply it is unsure about waits for you, with the reason. For how it writes, see an AI's replies to your customers' emails.

The agent's emails go out from your Outlook address

The agent's replies and follow-ups go out from your Outlook inbox, which files them in your Sent folder. A follow-up goes out in the original thread, with the team member who sent the original email in copy. When a colleague writes to the customer from the connected inbox, the follow-up stops. Each email carries a small note at the bottom saying your company's AI assistant prepared it; you can reword or remove it in the settings. To keep track of your quotes, see automatic follow-ups from Gmail or Outlook.

Connecting a tool to Microsoft 365: what to check first

Whether the tool is Muzau or another, these checks avoid access that is too broad or a connection that gets blocked.

• The account type. A work Microsoft 365 address depends on an administrator. They may have forbidden you from authorizing an app on your own: the screen then shows an approval request, to pass on to them. An Outlook.com or Hotmail address depends only on you.
• The sign-in page. It must be on a Microsoft address. A tool that asks for your Microsoft password in its own form does not need it: refuse.
• The listed permissions. Microsoft's screen says what the app will be able to do. To reply and follow up, reading and sending emails is enough; your contacts or your files are not needed.
• The publisher. "Unverified" means the publisher has not had its identity verified by Microsoft: check that the name shown is that of the tool you are connecting.
• The chosen inbox. Connect the one where requests arrive and from which quotes go out.
• The first test. Before handing over real customers, write to the inbox from another address and follow that email through to the reply.

To remove an app's access later, a personal account uses the page of your Microsoft account that lists the apps with access to your data. For a work account, the administrator removes it in the Microsoft Entra admin center, under enterprise applications.

What it does not do

• It only connects one Microsoft inbox per company for now, and does not write from each team member's personal inbox.
• It does not write from an alias of your Outlook inbox: whatever goes out through the inbox goes from its main address.
• On its own, it handles no email received before the connection, and of attachments it reads only the name.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need the administrator's approval to connect Microsoft 365 to an AI agent?

It depends on the company: some require their Microsoft administrator's approval before an app accesses a Microsoft 365 inbox, and the screen may show "unverified publisher". With or without that approval, the inbox connects to Muzau through the Microsoft sign-in, with no password to give.

Can you connect a Hotmail or Outlook.com inbox to an AI agent?

Yes. With Muzau, an Outlook.com or Hotmail inbox connects like a Microsoft 365 inbox, through the Microsoft sign-in, with no password to give. For now, only one Microsoft inbox can be connected per company.

Does an AI agent read the old emails in an Outlook inbox?

Not on its own: Muzau handles no email received before the Outlook inbox was connected. When you connect the inbox from the Follow-ups screen, though, the agent rereads the last 60 days, received and sent, and shows you the conversations left without a follow-up; you choose which ones to follow up.

Do you need to connect the Outlook calendar at the same time as the inbox?

No, the Outlook calendar is connected separately. Once connected, it lets the agent see when you are free, suggest slots and book the appointment; Outlook sends the invitation to the customer, with, for a video meeting, the link from your account's tool, usually Teams for a work account. Muzau reads only your busy times and the participants' addresses.

How do you remove an app's access to your Outlook inbox?

With Muzau, disconnect the inbox from the Tools page: the access details Muzau saved are erased. The authorization is not removed remotely at Microsoft: you still have to remove it yourself in your Microsoft account, or have your administrator do it for a work address.