Kerna AI Email Assistant

Most email tools help you write faster. Kerna handles the part before that: working out what needs answering, and finding the facts you need to answer it. Kerna groups your messages by what they actually need from you, pulls structured data out of the attachments and drafts the response, all inside Outlook. It works in your own mailbox and in shared or delegated mailboxes you already have access to.

Know what needs action first

Kerna reviews the mailbox and groups every message by the work it creates. Start from your industry's categories, or write your own in plain language: "needs a quote", "waiting on supplier", "for the accountant". The categories match how your work is organised rather than how a generic labelling system thinks it should be.

Triage runs across a shared or delegated mailbox the same way it runs across your own. Kerna cannot open a mailbox you cannot already open yourself, and it requests no permission to send mail, so nothing leaves without you.

Attachments become data, not just a summary

Name the fields once and Kerna reads every PDF, Word, Excel and CSV file in the thread against exactly those fields, so the columns line up every time. Export the result as an Excel or CSV file, one row per document, ready to sort, filter and pass on.

Set your industry once

Your industry gives you a working starting point in the three places Kerna does the heavy lifting, so you edit rather than write from nothing.

• Triage opens with five categories that reflect how that industry works, rather than generic high, medium and low. Rename or replace them at any point.
• Attachment extraction ships five document types per industry, 100 in total, each carrying the fields that document normally holds. Manufacturing covers purchase orders, supplier invoices, bills of materials, quality reports and packing lists, and the purchase order preset alone pulls order number, buyer, supplier, order date, currency, net total, gross total, delivery address and Incoterms.
• Compose ships 200 email topics across the same industries, each asking for the details that topic needs. The Legal settlement proposal brief asks for the matter reference, opposing party, settlement amount, response deadline and key terms, so the draft comes back complete rather than generic.

Industries covered: Automotive, Construction, Consulting / Freelance, E-commerce, Education, Event Planning, Finance / Banking, General Business, Healthcare, Hospitality (Hotel/Restaurant), IT Services, Legal, Manufacturing, Marketing Agency, Media / Publishing, Non-Profit, Real Estate, Recruitment / HR, SaaS (Software) and Travel Agency. Every preset is editable, and nothing stops you using another industry's set if it fits your work better.

Then handle the rest

• Summarise a long thread down to what changed, what was decided and what is being asked of you.
• Reply with a draft grounded in the thread, adjustable for tone, length and intent.
• Improve a draft you have already written, from a quick tightening pass to a full restructure.
• Extract the dates, tasks and contacts buried in a message and turn them into calendar events, tasks or saved contacts once you confirm them.
• Compose recurring emails from a guided topic brief instead of a blank page.
• Work across 45 languages, each tuned individually rather than run through a translator, so a reply reads as if written by someone who works in that language.

Who gets the most out of it

Kerna suits people whose inbox behaves like a queue rather than a conversation: messages arrive from outside the company, carry documents, and someone has to work out what each one needs before the real work starts.

• You are the address the company publishes. More arrives each day than you can read in order, whether it lands in your own inbox or a shared customer service, sales or operations mailbox. Office and practice managers, customer service leads, and owners of small firms where everything lands in one place.
• Documents arrive attached and get typed out again. Invoices, orders, delivery notes, statements and reports that somebody opens, reads and copies into a system by hand. Accounts payable, bookkeepers, procurement, logistics, site managers, claims handlers.
• You write the same handful of emails over and over. The structure is fixed and only the details change. Consultants, account managers, estate agents, and anyone sending proposals, quotes, updates and chasers all week.
• Your correspondence crosses languages. Reading takes as long as replying, and replying in the other side's language takes longer still. Export sales, freight forwarding, and any team with suppliers or customers in another country.

Privacy built into the mechanism

Personal data is redacted before message text reaches the AI model. Email content and attachments are covered by a zero data retention agreement with our model provider, so they are not stored by it and are never used to train models. Processing runs on Kerna's own infrastructure in the European Union, and only when you trigger an action. AI-generated text carries an in-product notice and a machine-readable marker, in line with the transparency direction of the EU AI Act. See our Privacy Policy.

Requirements

Outlook on the web, new and classic Outlook on Windows, and Outlook on Mac. Outlook mobile is in development. Kerna works in individual mailboxes and in shared or delegated mailboxes your organisation has already granted you, and does not extend your access to any mailbox. It needs a Microsoft-hosted mailbox: Microsoft 365, Exchange Online or Outlook.com. Sign in with your Microsoft work, school or personal account.

Getting started

Add Kerna, open any message and start it from the ribbon or the Apps menu. Create a free Kerna account, pick your industry, then run triage across the mailbox or choose the action you need.

Plans and pricing

Every plan includes the same Kerna features, including triage, attachment extraction and shared or delegated mailbox support. Plans differ in the monthly token allowance and, on Business and Enterprise, the number of seats sharing one pool. Subscriptions are billed by Kerna through Stripe, not through Microsoft. See kerna.io/pricing for current plans.