Microsoft Outlook is planning to make it easier to find meeting-critical documents, such as recordings, transcriptions, and minutes, from within the email client itself, without the need to cross over to other applications.
The new feature, revealed on the Microsoft 365 roadmap (opens in new tab), will likely collate the AI-powered “intelligent recaps” delivered by Microsoft Teams Premium, the company’s upcoming paid addon for its collaboration platform software.
That’s because those recaps, announced at the company’s Ignite event in October 2022, share a provisional December 2022 rollout date.
Microsoft 365's productivity competition
Microsoft’s latest announcement for Outlook is part of the company’s ongoing push to make Microsoft 365 a more convenient, consolidated experience
It also announced at Ignite that that the existing Microsoft 365 apps across web, desktop are being retired in favor of one single application, with the complete switchover scheduled for January 2023.
We first caught wind of the “intelligent recap” features, which may well soon be announced as integrating with other applications within Microsoft 365, through Microsoft Places, an application Microsoft sees as bridging the gap between remote working solutions and the physical workplace, without replacing either of them.
Microsoft claims Places will do this by helping employees plan meetings by offering, amongst other things working location labels and a “modernized” booking system.
All of these updates taken together could seem exciting for companies within Microsoft’s enterprise ecosystem, and those adopting a hybrid work environment, but it’s only the AI recaps that can be said to both innovate and make our lives easier.
With regards to working locations, Google Workspace has long beaten Microsoft to the punch, and has recently announced that it’s giving IT admins the option to require that employees use the feature within Google Calendar.
Google itself, however, is also playing catch up when it comes to making sure that users never need more than one application environment.
With both Google and Microsoft scheduling major keynotes for the same week, and offering marginally similar feature sets as part of either company's collaboration tools (opens in new tab), it’s not easy to say right now which one offers, or will offer, the most convenience for enterprises.
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