Outlook let spam flood my inbox, but Copilot caught it instantly — so what’s stopping Microsoft from combining them?

This morning I received five spam emails in a row, all of which Outlook failed to flag as junk. Outlook has a poor reputation for its spam filtering, but today's incident was particularly bad. It also made me wonder why Microsoft isn't using the resources at its disposal to fix Outlook's spam filter.

If Microsoft insists on forcing AI into everything from Windows 11 to Notepad, the tech giant should help everyday consumers with daily annoyances. Spam emails, at minimum, bog down productivity. In worst-case scenarios, they can be used to scam unsuspecting people and hurt organizations.

I'm not alone in my complaint. Reddit and Microsoft's website have several posts complaining about Outlook's spam filter that also suggest using AI to fix the problem.

To be honest, Microsoft may already have some form of AI working to flag spam emails, but the company clearly isn't using its best AI tools to address the problem.

Copilot can already identify spam

When looking through my inbox and junk folder in Outlook, I noticed the Copilot logo already appears on the screen. Copilot in Outlook can summarize emails, draft responses, summarize meetings, and help in a variety of other ways. At the moment, Copilot does not seem to be involved in spam filtering — but I got curious.

To see if Copilot can already detect spam, I sent some screenshots of my inbox and junk folders to the AI tool. To my surprise, not only did Copilot correctly identify spam emails, it discovered legitimate emails that had been flagged as junk.

Copilot noted that it could not analyze the content of my inbox, which makes sense since I had just shared screenshots. To test Copilot more, I screenshotted the contents of a specific email that is obviously spam (but that had made it through Outlook's spam filter).

"That email is almost certainly junk, and likely part of a phishing or scam campaign," said Copilot. The tool then went on to explain why the email was junk.

• Sender address: customerservice@mh.familyaginglifecare.com
  • This domain has no connection to MailOnline, Dragons’ Den, or any reputable weight loss brand. It’s a random, misleading domain trying to look official.
• Subject line: ...The_Dragons’_Den_D.e.a.l._That_Changed_Everything#4650
  • The use of underscores, ellipses, and hashtags is classic spam formatting — designed to bypass filters.
• Recipient address: admin@zglz.kI9cA5k2.o5P
  • That’s not a normal email address format. It looks auto-generated or spoofed.
• Attachments:
  • A calendar invite (invite.ics) and a “not supported calendar message” — both are suspicious. Spammers often use .ics files to sneak in malicious links or auto-schedule scam calls.
• Body content:
  • Claims that all five Dragons offered £1 million for a supplement called “Lean X” — this is a fabricated story. There’s no record of such a deal on Dragons’ Den, and these kinds of fake endorsements are common in weight loss scams.
• Brand misuse:
  • The email uses the MailOnline logo and references a popular TV show to build false credibility. That’s a known tactic in spam campaigns.

I'd be willing to bet many of you saw the subject line and screenshot of that email and immediately recognized it as junk. Copilot determined the same thing. And yet, Outlook placed that email lovingly inside my inbox alongside emails from my friends, family, and colleagues.

On the flip side, Copilot can also identify legitimate emails that have been wrongly flagged as spam. The tool looked at a screenshot of my junk folder that I provided and correctly determined two of the emails shown were legitimate.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Copilot even referenced the fact that I am a football coach to strengthen the case that an email from Craig Roh is not junk. Roh sends out coaching tips and I have signed up for his newsletter. Copilot noted that the email was likely flagged due to its bulk formatting.

That's the type of behavior I would expect from an integrated tool within Outlook. Microsoft knows a lot about me already since I use Copilot often. Spam filtering should improve over time as I use Microsoft's AI suite and stay up-to-date with likely scams and nuisances because Copilot is plugged into the web.