United Kingdom, Feb. 20 -- Microsoft has acknowledged its AI-powered workplace assistant mistakenly accessed and summarised some users' confidential emails, saying a configuration update has now been deployed worldwide to address the issue.

The technology company said the error affected Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat, a generative AI tool integrated into products including Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams.

Copilot Chat is marketed as a secure way for enterprise customers using Microsoft 365 to summarise emails and answer questions.

However, the company confirmed the tool had surfaced content from messages labelled confidential that were stored in users' Draft and Sent Items folders.

A Microsoft spokesperson told the BBC: "We identifi...