9brains in Outlook

With the Outlook add-in, you open 9brains as a side panel right next to the email you are reading or writing. 9brains reads this email and its attachments, drafts replies and new emails with your company’s knowledge and opens them in Outlook as drafts. There you check the draft and send it yourself: 9brains never sends anything on your behalf.

The add-in is available with a Business or Max license. It runs in Outlook on the web, in the new Outlook for Windows and Mac, and in classic Outlook for Windows and Mac with Microsoft 365, shared mailboxes included. Microsoft does not allow add-ins in IMAP or POP accounts such as Gmail; the only exception is Outlook for Mac when the account syncs through the Microsoft Cloud.

Sign in once

Open an email and choose 9brains in the toolbar. In newer Outlook versions the add-in sits behind the Apps button. The first time, the side panel shows Sign in. The familiar 9brains sign-in with password, Microsoft or Google account opens in your browser, where your password manager and passkeys work too. Afterwards the browser shows a four-digit code: if it is the same as in the side panel, choose Connect to Outlook. You stay signed in to the add-in, even after restarting Outlook.

If no browser opened, choose Open browser again in the side panel, or Copy link and paste the link into your browser. You can sign out via the person icon at the top right of the side panel.

What you can ask 9brains in Outlook

At the top of the side panel you see the email that is currently open, with subject and sender. Below it you have two options:

• Draft reply: One click, and 9brains writes a reply draft with your company’s knowledge. If you are writing an email yourself, the button is called Draft email, and 9brains writes the text into your draft.
• Your own instruction: Type what 9brains should do into the field below.

9brains works right inside your Outlook. It reads the open email itself whenever it needs it, and can for example:

• Read emails and attachments: “Summarise the email”, “What does the attached offer say?”. 9brains reads text attachments directly; PDF and Office files or images it puts into the chat and reads there like an uploaded file.
• Draft replies and new emails: “Reply politely that we can only deliver next week” or “Write a new email to purchasing@example.com and ask for the delivery date”. Outlook opens the draft with recipients, subject and text.
• Edit your draft: In the email you are writing, just say “Make the text friendlier” or “Shorten the second paragraph”. You don’t need to select anything. 9brains changes exactly that passage in the draft. Your signature and the quoted earlier messages stay as they are. On request it also inserts new text and sets the subject.

After a change to the draft, your cursor may be somewhere else. Just click where you want to keep writing. In classic Outlook and in Outlook for Mac, Undo cannot take such a change back; if needed, ask 9brains to reverse it.

The answers appear in the side panel, and you can ask follow-up questions or request changes just like in the normal chat. In 9brains the chat is not listed in your chat history, you can find it through search. New request starts over.

9brains never sends

9brains only opens and edits drafts. You check every draft in Outlook and send it yourself.

In Outlook on the web, depending on the view, a draft opens as a window of its own. The browser only allows that after a click. 9brains then shows the draft in the side panel with the button Open draft: one click, and Outlook opens it. Once the draft is open, the side panel says so. If you closed it by mistake, Open again opens a new one with the same text; every click on it creates another draft.

Use the pin at the top of the side panel to keep it open. When you then select another email, 9brains follows and starts fresh for that email.

What 9brains sees of your email

9brains only reads the email that is currently open, and only when a request needs it: subject, sender, recipients, date, the text including quoted earlier messages, and the list of attachments. It only opens an attachment when your request needs it. If you are writing an email, it also sees what you have selected there, if Outlook hands it out. The rest of your mailbox stays out of it.

The Outlook features only work while the chat is open in the side panel in Outlook. If you later open the same chat in 9brains in the browser, you can keep writing there, but 9brains cannot reach the email from there.

For administrators: roll out the add-in in your company

The easiest way is to deploy the add-in centrally in the Microsoft 365 admin center. You need the Global Administrator or Exchange Administrator role for this.

1. Download the manifest file: 9brains manifest for Outlook.
2. Open the Microsoft 365 admin center and go to Settings > Integrated apps.
3. Choose Upload custom apps, select Office Add-in as the app type, and upload the manifest file.
4. Decide who gets the add-in: the entire organization or specific users and groups.
5. Accept the permission and finish the deployment.

It can take up to 72 hours until the add-in shows up in everyone’s Outlook. Each person then signs in once themselves, as described above. The add-in needs no additional Microsoft permissions: it only reads and writes the email that is currently open. Deploy it to people, not to shared mailboxes: anyone with access to a shared mailbox uses their own add-in there.

If you want to try the add-in just for yourself first, you can add it in Outlook on the web: open aka.ms/olksideload, choose My add-ins, then under Custom Addins select Add a custom add-in > Add from File and pick the manifest file.