Can Copilot help write better performance review comments?

Copilot can definitely help with the writing part, but the bigger issue is giving it enough context to work with.

If a manager just opens Copilot and asks it to “write better performance feedback,” you’ll usually get polished but pretty generic language. The useful version is when the AI can see things like the employee’s goals, previous feedback, 1:1 notes, review history, and maybe relevant project outcomes.

We’ve tried a few approaches with SharePoint/Teams, but the setup can get messy because that context tends to live in different places and you have to think quite carefully about permissions too.

One option worth looking at if you’re already heavily in Microsoft 365 is Teamflect. It runs inside Teams and Outlook, and managers can use AI while they’re actually completing the review. Since the performance review, goals, feedback, and 1:1 data are already in the same system, the AI has much more useful context than a standalone “rewrite this comment” prompt.

I’d still treat AI as a drafting assistant rather than letting it write the review for the manager. The manager should provide the actual judgment and examples; AI is much better used to turn that into specific, constructive feedback instead of “Fully agree.”