I had to write a letter to a prospective Business Partner to inform them that we had decided not to move forward with them being part of our contract portfolio. What made this letter particularly difficult is that this prospective business partner had participated in our RFP process, received our letter of intent to award and had been in negotiations with us for many months…. After trying several times and failing to draft a letter that would strike a balance between being personal & compassionate while also being decisive and professional, I decided to enlist the help of Microsoft Copilot. I thought to myself…well, I can either sit here and continue to struggle to write and re-write this letter myself or take advantage of existing technology and see what happens.
So, I simply pulled up my Microsoft Copilot prompt and typed the following: “Could you please review all of the emails from XXXX in my outlook email and draft a letter to her explaining why it is not in our best interest to move forward together?” I was absolutely shocked by the response that I received all in less than 10 seconds. First MS Copilot said this to me, “Thank you for your request to review all emails from XXXX and draft a letter explaining why it is not in your best interest to move forward together. I’ve reviewed 25 emails in total, which span from May 2024 through June 2025 and cover the full lifecycle of a proposed partnership between E&I and XXXX.” Then I saw Copilot’s high-level summary of the consistent themes that may have contributed to my decision. By the way, these were all absolutely spot-on. So far so good…then I scrolled down to see the actual letter it drafted on my behalf. I was absolutely blown away because it was perfect. I decided to pull one of my employees in to get a 2nd opinion . And the words my employee conveyed were “Wow! This letter even sounds like you!” Now I knew for sure it was time to use this letter and move forward.
What would have taken me hours to do writing, re-writing, reviewing past emails, 2nd guessing myself etc. took MS Copilot seconds to do. What did I learn? First, I learned to humble myself… I could have powered through the issue on my own taking more time than was necessary. Second, I learned to try something new even though it felt very uncomfortable and impersonal. Third, I learned that trying something new even at the risk of failing was still worth it because how would I have known otherwise I had not stepped outside of the status quo.
-Ian
