Microsoft has revealed what it's thinking about for upcoming iterations of Microsoft 365 and its Office apps, combining a flexible ribbon and a more muted color scheme with adaptive commands and a greater emphasis on artificial intelligence. In a blog post on Tuesday, the chief designer of Office 365, Jon Friedman, said that some of the changes were on the table, while others were simply exploratory. Friedman didn't provide a timeline for the changes beyond a "year or two," but it's likely that this will be another wholesale update of the Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) suite. Microsoft has continually updated Office over time--and it's had to, as it's asking customers to spend about $70 per year just for a personal license to what's now called Microsoft 365. In 2018, the new innovation was Microsoft Search, the search box that lives at the top of apps like Outlook and SharePoint.

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Writing requires a dash of uniquely human creativity. Artificial intelligence alone cannot do it for us, at least not very well. But AI can – and already is – helping us do things like make sure we spell words correctly and use correct grammar, through the myriad ways it is infused across the suite of Microsoft 365 products. Some of them were even used to craft this story. As the AI in these products is becoming more sophisticated, they are helping us do more than spot a misspelled word.

Smarter searches don't necessarily need to live in a search engine. This week, Microsoft will debut two tools that will live in Office: Microsoft Search and Ideas, designed to assist workers trying to dig out the document that they need, now. Microsoft hosts its Microsoft Ignite conference this week, and the company promises literally dozens of announcements--most pertaining to its Azure cloud and related services. But Microsoft also plans a few key developments at the user level, including final rollouts of features the company has announced previously, such as the ability to blur backgrounds within Microsoft Teams video chats and transcribe meetings. The two most significant announcements for Office users are probably the enhanced Microsoft Search experience, which will traverse Windows, Office.com,

Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives I contacted Microsoft and asked a simple question: "Am I going bonkers?" I felt the company's spokeswoman all too readily to reply "you must be the last to know," before I added: "Has your Bing Translator page suddenly been featuring a big Microsoft logo?" You see, very occasionally, I lurch to Bing just to see what's going on there. And last week, when I clicked onto its Bing Translator link, I was confronted with a big "Microsoft Translator" at the top. I felt sure I hadn't seen this before.