I got wind of a new super-cool feature of Outlook that will be announced soon. Here is the press-release that I got in advance.

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New Outlook Feature implemented: Cancels Meetings Ahead of Time 

Clogged conference rooms and calendars open up as useless meetings are weeded out. Conference room traffic is at a six-year low.

“I didn’t think we needed a meeting anyway,” said manager Karen Lohman when she received a cancellation notice for her own meeting.

This didn’t happen by serendipity or premonition or even her own doing, but rather by a new feature built into the next version of Microsoft Outlook that automatically knows which meetings won’t happen based on the behavior of the organizer and participants.

“We saw last minute meeting cancellations happening again and again and decided we could create an algorithm that predicts ahead of time what meetings are necessary and which ones are not,” said Outlook developer Sara Hobblenobber.

Outlook uses criteria such as multiple reschedules by meeting organizer, lack of an agenda, and use of terms like “hash,” “re-hash,” “hash out,” “consensus,” “brainstorm,” and “team building” in the description field to auto-categorize a meeting as unnecessary.

Other features built into the meeting invite response buttons can predict the odds that a meeting will or will not happen.

For example, studying patterns of respondents who use the “Tentative” reply helps gauge the likelihood that they will actually attend. Research shows a parent with young kids will almost certainly never attend a 4 p.m. Friday meeting, while a young developer with an active nightlife has about zero chance of making an 8 a.m. meeting, even if their GM is the organizer.

With her calendar now wide open, Karen Lohman will have to get back to actual work. 

“This is just the first step to really getting inside the head of the user,” said Hobblenobber. “Eventually, whole responses to e-mails can be composed with only a few actions.”

Future versions of Outlook might enable a built-in camera and microphone to analyze users’ thoughts and voice patterns. Verbal and nonverbal cues from e-mail recipients, such as muttering “not this guy again” or making shifty eye movements after receiving e-mail from the boss could generate one of dozens of different automated responses to meeting invites.

“The auto-replies will save you the awkward task of saying ‘no’ when your boss schedules a useless meeting. They’ll say the things you’re thinking and make them more authoritative,” said Hobblenobber.

The current beta version of the product has drawn rave reviews. In buildings where it was tested, conference room availability is up 84 percent.

“I needed to book a meeting on just two days notice. Normally I wouldn’t even try, but I actually found three rooms to choose from,” said Shante Bellows, a senior procurement manager.

As for Lohman, her workdays are quite different now. “I don't know what to do with myself,” she says. “Most of the time on my calendar is now freed up. I guess I should get to work.”