Microsoft

As Microsoft continues to ramp up its integration of generative AI tools, the newest product the company announced is a strong competitor to AI productivity hub, Notion AI. 

Microsoft's new collaboration hub, Microsoft Loop, harnesses the Microsoft Office suite to offer a seamless way of managing projects and tasks. With Loop, users can create collaborative documents using any Microsoft Office application, like Outlook, Teams, or Word.

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Loop mimics the collaborative nature of Google Workspace by allowing up to 50 people to collaborate on one document at the same time. There are three parts to Loop: Components, workspaces, and pages.

To begin your collaborative project, you begin in workspaces. Here, you can input relevant keywords about your project and Loop will suggest the appropriate tools for you to use. Then, the app will create pages that organize your content.

New pages will suggest templates, designs, and images based on your keywords. If your project requires input from someone outside of your team, you can quickly decompose parts of your project. This feature allows you to only share certain information, or a component, with people outside of your organization.

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Components can be copied and pasted on any Microsoft Office application. Pages can be shared as a web link or a live page. To comment on a page, users can comment directly on the page or opt to comment from their Outlook email, similar to Google Docs.

Within a project, you can add progress trackers to keep people informed about what to do next. Tasks assigned in the Loop app can be synced in Microsoft Planner and To Do, which creates a to-do list for you. 

The Loop app can deliver notifications on your desktop and mobile devices, notifying you of mentions, assigned tasks, and comment replies. The app also offers security and permission controls, keeping your pages and components in the right hands. 

Loop works with Microsoft Copilot, which gives users AI-powered suggestions for your pages and components. In your project, you can ask Copilot for suggestions, change the prompt's tone, and ask Copilot to reformat your writing.

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Once Copilot creates what you're looking for, you can share it as a Loop component in any Microsoft 365 app. Copilot can help you summarize information within Loop, edit summaries, and share them with your time.

Loop is available in public preview on the web and on Android and Apple mobile devices. More likely than not, your company will have to approve your access to Loop on your company-owned device first. For now, Loop is only available on company accounts, so you won't be able to access it on your personal devices. 

Artificial Intelligence

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