Yesterday, Microsoft talked about a series of new features that will come to its Office apps for Android and iOS. These features will arrive in the next few weeks or months. The goal is to offer your “conversational AI” the always reliable Cortana. Plus new ways for users to create short videos with Microsoft Lens as well as other productivity updates for Teams, Outlook, and other Office applications.
Cortana is back in the Office apps
Conversational AI technology with Cortana is something Microsoft highlighted at its Build 2019 conference. At that time, company workers showed how we were going to be able to work with a voice assistant. The first app that will benefit will be Outlook on iOS and later it will reach other apps such as Teams.
The goal is to allow us to better manage our time, schedule events and meetings in Outlook, and many other functions. This includes being able to compose emails, mark them or delete them with our voice. At Build 2019, Microsoft said that many of these types of Cortana voice-assisted capabilities would come true thanks to the advancements following the acquisition of Semantic Machines.
Microsoft has also changed the name of its Office Lens app to Microsoft Lens. The company plans to include the ability to create short videos and have that content incorporated into Teams Mobile through Lens. Lens will also be able to recognize English handwriting and text, just like Office mobile at some point. Users will be able to transcribe handwritten notes into text to add them directly to their documents.
Rather than being just another receipt scan app, Lens will enable the integration of “short video clips” in Teams chat. By creating Lens in Teams, users can record a short video, incorporate text and emojis, do basic editing, and more. Microsoft workers said this capability will be integrated into Teams in preview at the end of the quarter.
News that will also reach Teams and Office
Microsoft Search in Teams and Office is adding support for natural language queries in English in the US This means that users will be able to type phrases in Teams in the search box or use voice to ask Cortana to find messages, chats, meetings, people, files and links.
Microsoft has also improved PDF annotation in Office Mobile under Actions. Users can add notes, forms, dates, and timestamps to their PDF files. And the company will make available to iPad users the same simplified Office mobile app that’s already on Windows, combining the features of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single app. Workers did not provide a date when this new Office mobile app will be on Apple’s app store.