Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly: Designer is coming to Word and more

Welcome back to Microsoft 365 Roadmap Weekly, where we check out the roadmap's website to see what new entries have been put in place in the last seven days.

For people who use Word on nearly all platforms, it looks like it will be integrating Microsoft's AI-generated image maker Designer sometime in June with the help of Copilot. The roadmap states:

Copilot in Word now integrates with Designer to help you find the perfect image or create a banner to bring your document to life.

Designer is coming to the desktop, Mac, web, and iOS versions of Word. There's no listing on the roadmap site for Designer coming to the Android Word app yet.

Another Copilot-related feature that will be added to Word platforms later in April is Bing search integration:

Ask Copilot a question in Word chat and Copilot generates an answer using the power of integrated Bing search. And you never have to leave the app.

That feature is coming to the desktop, Mac, and web editions of Word. Those versions of the word processing app will also add integrated Copilot Graph-grounded search features in April as well.

In May, the desktop and Mac versions of Word will add another Copilot function:

Use Draft with Copilot in Word with the on-canvas Copilot menu when a user selects text, a list, or a table, which generates new content from Copilot and provides a richer, more interactive experience.

Copilot will also be a part of a web update for Excel in May:

Additional support for complex conditional formats beyond the basic top and bottom or conditional operators. For example, Copilot analyzes two factors when highlighting all rows where the product is bikes and sales is greater than 100.

In June, the new Outlook for Windows and the web will get some new copy and paste keyboard shortcuts:

Users will be able to copy and paste emails in Outlook using the shortcuts Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, allowing them to quickly transfer emails to the desired folder, streamlining workflow, and enhancing productivity.

Finally, the Microsoft Teams Calls app will get some AI features in June for all platforms:

The Calls app in Teams will soon have AI-generated notes and action items from your calls, so you can pay attention to your conversations and save time coordinating next steps. Intelligent call recap will work for both VoIP and PSTN calls, and summaries will be generated from calls for which transcription was enabled.

That's our look back at the past week on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap site. We will return next Sunday with another installment.

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