Microsoft 365: New features for Copilot, Teams gets simultaneous translator
New features in Microsoft 365? For the Redmond software company, this currently means above all: Copilot here and Copilot there.
The Microsoft 365 productivity cloud service is getting a range of new AI features, with the Copilot assistant at the forefront. It will be boosted with additional capabilities and can boast an average doubling of response times, Microsoft promised at its in-house trade fair Ignite 2024.
New Copilot actions will make it possible to automate everyday routine tasks, for example. For example, simple prompts can be used to generate a summary of the most important tasks at the end of the working day or to collect team contributions for a newsletter. The function is already available as a private preview. In teams, Copilot will soon also be able to capture visual content shared on the screen and then process it in a log, for example. For files shared in a chat, the AI assistant should also be able to provide short summaries of the content. It should be possible to try out these capabilities in a public preview at the beginning of next year.
Also next year, Copilot will be able to translate PowerPoint presentations into one of 40 different languages while retaining the layout. And in Outlook, the AI assistant will help to find appointments for meetings and create an agenda for them.
In addition to Copilot, Microsoft is also promising a translator for Teams conversations, which will translate the spoken word into the other language in real time like a simultaneous interpreter. If desired, the AI will also be able to speak with the voice of the translated user. This will initially be available for nine languages and can be tested in a public preview at the beginning of 2025. In addition, AI agents are set to find their way into Microsoft 365 on a larger scale, for example in Sharepoint.
(axk)