Microsoft Adds New Intelligent Writing Assistant Features to Word

Using advanced neural network and machine learning models, Microsoft has unveiled a new feature in Word that provides sentence-level writing suggestions.

The new feature is an update to Microsoft’s Rewrite Suggestions, which offers ideas to help users rephrase sentences for more impact or clarity.

The feature is available for users of Word on the web that have a subscription to Microsoft 365 or Office 365. English is currently the only supported language.

To use the feature, select or right click a sentence and select Rewrite Suggestions in the menu. A rewrite suggestion card will then show up near the sentence and will offer different suggestions, that help users improve fluency, cut unnecessary words and improve readability.

Here’s more from Microsoft’s official blog on the feature:

Improves fluency: These suggestions aim to improve the flow of the wording, including mechanics like grammar and spelling.

Concise phrasing: The goal of these suggestions is to express an idea clearly, without extra words.
Paraphrased sentence: These suggestions offer synonyms for alternative wording

Improves readability: The goal of these suggestions is to make the writing easier to read for people with different reading abilities. In general, suggestions will include shorter, simpler wording.

In each of the suggestions, the range of text containing all the changes is highlighted in purple.
You may not see all categories of suggestions for a sentence, and sometimes there may be no suggestion as your sentence is good enough.

Feedback on the suggestions will help the company improve the feature.

Microsoft announced the feature at its Build conference last year, but it could only suggest new phrases.

Last month, Microsoft announced Microsoft Editor, an intelligent writing assistant for Word, Outlook and the web. General availability is expected by the end of April.

These features appear to be Microsoft’s answer to similar capabilities in Google’s G Suite, including intelligent writing assistants in Google Docs and Gmail.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!