Microsoft Integrates Conversational Cortana AI Technology into Mobile 365 Apps

Microsoft has launched a comprehensive series of updates for its 365 mobile apps, enhancing functionality with new AI and natural language capabilities in Outlook, Teams, and Microsoft Lens (formerly Office Lens). A notable addition is the “micro tasks” feature, enabling quick forms, polls, and more within Office and Teams.

For iOS users, Outlook will soon integrate Cortana’s conversational AI technology, offering interactive and voice-forward experiences designed to streamline daily organization. A demonstration highlighted how users can command, “Hey Cortana, play my emails,” prompting the voice assistant to summarize recent messages and even schedule meetings through Outlook.

Teams, followed by Outlook and Office, will soon support natural language queries in English across the US. Users can utilize text or Cortana to search for messages, chats, meetings, and more. An exciting video collaboration feature will allow users to contribute and create content seamlessly using intelligent scanning from Microsoft Lens.

Microsoft Lens will also enhance its capability to recognize English handwriting and text, starting with the Lens app and later extending to Office Mobile. This functionality enables users to transcribe handwritten notes into text for easy integration into documents.

Additionally, the introduction of “micro tasking shortcuts” will empower users to easily generate quick forms or polls in Office and Teams, plan their schedules with daily weather forecasts, and link to websites directly from Outlook mobile emails using an integrated Bing web view.

For a complete overview of all the features introduced, visit the Microsoft blog.