New Delhi, Jun 9 (IANS): Microsoft has announced to bring Cortana-enabled voice capabilities to its Outlook mobile app which will help users write emails, schedule meetings and search.

Available in Outlook for iOS first, a new icon in Outlook mobile will appear to activate the voice mode.

The users can also respond to messages with their voice and write new emails.

Microsoft said in a statement on Tuesday that weekly meetings have increased by 148 per cent, with the average time to schedule a meeting taking six to 29 minutes.

The company said to make online meetings easier, Scheduler which is a new Microsoft 365 service is now available.

"Scheduler understands what you write, so you can word your requests to Cortana just as you would when asking any person for assistance scheduling a meeting in an email," the company said.

As Scheduler learns, you may receive responses from Cortana asking you to clarify certain asks or to provide more details in order to complete your request.

Scheduler is the first artificial intelligence service with human assistance in Microsoft 365 that allows Cortana to work without specific keywords.

"With Scheduler, Cortana has access to the same information you do you when scheduling meetings, including you and your colleague's Outlook free/busy availability without having access to any further details," Microsoft said.

Scheduler is enabled independently from other Cortana services, such as Cortana for Windows 10 and the Briefing email from Cortana.