Office 365 early 2018 updates bring new AI features to Excel and SharePoint

Microsoft just rolled out a lot of updates targeting Office 365. These include intelligent search in SharePoint, new data types in Excel, and expanding Microsoft Cloud with data centers in new locations.

Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office team detailed all these exciting updates on Microsoft’s official blog. Here are the most important features and capabilities that are coming to Office 365.

Excel receives new intelligent functionalities

Office 365 subscribers rely on Excel for performing various tasks from simple to the most complex using its smart tools. Microsoft’ updates target enhancing the power of the Microsoft Cloud in order to also increase Excel’s potential as well. Here are the most significant new capabilities that reach Excel:

• New cloud-connected data types reach Excel such as Stocks and Geography.
• Excel now has more AI capabilities, and it’s able to recognize rich data types that go beyond text and numbers.
• Excel Online’s functionalities have also been expanded with more desktop features to create and edit spreadsheets in users’ browsers easily.

Customized search, added to Office 365

Microsoft Cloud can now be used to improve the organization-wide search, enable modern communities and streamline content delivery. Personalized, intelligent search is currently rolling out to all Office 365 subscribers. Now, Office 365 will be able to provide customized search results for users based on their work patterns. This will make the results much more accurate and more comfortable to explore.

Microsoft also introduces SharePoint hub sites for corporate intranets which include news, navigation and search from across SharePoint team sites and communication sites. The updates also bring a new web part that allows organizations to add Yammer conversations and feeds to any SharePoint webpage or site.

• RELATED: Office 2019 runs exclusively on Windows 10: Upgrade or stay out

Cloud infrastructure becomes broader

The cloud infrastructure expands with new datacenters that will help organizations transform the latest Office 365 digitally. Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft 365 for U.S.’s Government and the updates would enable agencies including Defense, Federal, State, Local and Tribal to transform via modernizing workplaces and digitizing citizen services.

You can read the complete detailed notes regarding all updates that are rolling out to Office 365 on Kirk Koenigsbauer’s blog post here.

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