Microsoft has been boosting its enterprise productivity offerings this week, including making Teams free and debuting analytics tools for Office 365. Through the bundle service Microsoft 365, the company has also added new features.
Specifically, Microsoft 365 now gives anyone in an organization the ability to create events. From live to on-demand events, users can make dynamic content with interactive discussions and embedded HD videos.
Events can be scheduled to stream in real-time or be made available on demand (or both). Microsoft says it has leveraged its artificial intelligence technology to ensure the quality of the event experience on the service.
For example, AI is used for speech-to-text, facial detection, and closed captioning. AI tools include:
- A speaker timeline, which uses facial detection to identify who is talking, so you can easily jump to a particular speaker in the event.
- Speech-to-text transcription, timecoding, and transcript search, so you can quickly find moments that matter in a recording.
- Closed captions to make the event more accessible to all.
Microsoft 365 users are not limited by the type of event they can create. Presentations, shared-screen experiences, webcam links, content development or a full stream are all available. Among the services used to create events are Microsoft services like Yammer, Microsoft Stream, and Microsoft Teams.
Live event tools are arriving in preview form in the coming weeks and will reach all Microsoft 365 users by the end of the year.
Integrated Product
In case you missed the news, Microsoft 365 became an integrated product with the launch of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. The service remains a bundle of Microsoft services, but is now operating as a singular product instead of individual services. Think of how Office 365 is a single product but has several services (apps) under its wing.
