Cathay’s Lawrence Fong on tackling his folder of unanswered emails

Source: Microsoft

Headline: Cathay’s Lawrence Fong on tackling his folder of unanswered emails

Lawrence Fong used to have a system for emails he was too busy to answer – move them to a folder aptly named “Follow up.” Of course, that follow -up sometimes didn’t happen.    

Last year, Fong started using Microsoft 365 Copilot to quickly draft routine email replies, such as responding to an event invitation or following up on an upcoming deadline. He reckons he now answers up to 20 percent of emails with Copilot in Outlook and has also started using Copilot in Word to draft speeches.   

“It’s very helpful,” said Fong, who is Director, Digital & IT at Cathay, a premium travel lifestyle brand that operates Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong’s home carrier.   

As businesses make generative AI tools available to employees throughout their organizations, those leading the initiative are experimenting and exchanging notes along with everyone else.   

Some 1,000 Cathay employees are using Microsoft 365 Copilot, with that number set to rise to several thousand this year.    

Cathay’s head of procurement told Fong he used Copilot to summarize a proposal in just a few minutes, instead of taking an hour, marvelling that “the accuracy was very high.” Others used it to summarize meetings and write emails.   

For Fong, Copilot is most useful for summarizing long emails and answering them. It sometimes picks up a minor point or niceties that Fong may miss. It remembers to thank the recipient.    

His favorite prompts are “Draft me a reply” and “Write me an email,” along with “long,” “short,” “formal,” “casual” or “say thank you” depending on the recipient.   

He has a wish list. He wishes Copilot could write emails that sounded more like him. Or write a document with his particular line of reasoning or using the right aviation industry terminology. He has to do some editing, but 80 percent of the text is usually OK.   

“More personalization would be good somewhere down the road,” he said.    

Ultimately, he sees Copilot as expanding access to AI the way PCs democratized computing and smartphones democratized mobility.    

Said Fong: “Everyone can use it in the home, the office, wherever.”    

Top image: Lawrence Fong, Director, Digital & IT, Cathay. Photo: Cathay.