Microsoft has announced a brief roadmap for OneDrive and SharePoint, detailing some features coming to the services. All new abilities are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and focus on automation. The company says the new additions will be available on Microsoft 365 before the end of the year.
The highlight of the announcement is automatic transcription for video and audio content. AI will work within OneDrive and SharePoint to transcript video and audio. This is the same artificial intelligence the company uses in its existing Microsoft Stream service.
“While viewing a video or listening to an audio file, a full transcript (improving both accessibility and search) will show directly in our industry-leading viewer, which supports over 320 different file types. This will help you utilize your personal video and audio assets, as well as collaborate with others to produce your best work.”
Also for video and audio is a new search mode. Also coming to images in OneDrive and SharePoint, this feature was first announced last year. Leveraging AI, the services will now tell users where a photo was taken and recognize objects within an image:
“This recognition and text extraction allows you to search for images as easily as you search for documents. For example, you could search a folder of scanned receipts for the receipt that mentions “sushi.” Video and audio files also become fully searchable thanks to the transcription services described earlier.”
More AI
Furthering AI implementation in OneDrive and SharePoint, Microsoft says recommendations will become more intelligent. A new files view will be added to OneDrive and Office.com, providing a more consistent recommendation process.
“Suggested files are based on the intelligence of the Microsoft Graph and its understanding of how you work, who you work with, and activity on content shared with you across Microsoft 365. This deep understanding of user behavior and relationships among coworkers is unique to Microsoft 365 and continues to be enriched as you collaborate on content in OneDrive and SharePoint.”
Speaking of files, both apps will get an updated file card later this year. The card will offer more statistics on files store in SharePoint and OneDrive. Users can see details such as who viewed the file and what possible next actions to take.
Microsoft wants to enhance collaboration on its productivity apps. Intelligent sharing will arrive this year and give users more tools for sharing content in a meeting environment.
Security
SharePoint and OneDrive will also score AI-driven security changes before the close of 2018. Microsoft detailed both the changes, including intelligent compliance and a file restoring system for OneDrive:
“OneDrive files restore—Earlier this year, we released OneDrive files restore including integration with Windows Defender Antivirus for business and personal users to protect you from ransomware attacks by identifying breaches and guiding you through remediation and file recovery. With a full 30 days of file history and sophisticated machine learning to help us spot potential attacks early, OneDrive gives you peace of mind for every file you store. Best of all, moving your files to OneDrive has never been easier thanks to Known Folder Move.
Intelligent compliance—In addition to being able to apply native data loss prevention (DLP) policies and conduct native eDiscovery searches on textual content stored in OneDrive and SharePoint, with the innovations discussed above, we’re making it even easier to use these key compliance capabilities with audio, video, and images later this year. Soon you’ll be able to leverage the text extracted from photos and audio/video transcriptions to automatically apply these policies and protect this content.”
Last Updated on September 15, 2023 1:26 pm CEST by Luke Jones
