Microsoft Word To Take Voice Commands, Transcribe Recordings

Microsoft said on Tuesday (Aug. 25) in a blog post that updates to Office 365 will allow users to record conversations “directly in Word for the web and transcribe them automatically.”

In addition, Office 365’s Dictate voice command feature is expanding. The company said that Dictate is available in Word for the web and Office mobile “for free when signed into a Microsoft account.” In addition: “Voice commands are coming to the Word desktop and Word for Mac apps toward the end of the year for Microsoft 365 subscribers.”

Also, Transcribe is now available in Word for the web for all Microsoft 365 subscribers and is supported in the new Microsoft Edge and Chrome browsers.

Microsoft said these offerings are powered by the Azure Cognitive Services artificial intelligence (AI) platform, which will allow users to “focus on what matters most,” and less on transcribing conversations and typing in commands.

Transcribe in Word for the web “converts speech (recorded directly in Word or from an uploaded audio file) to a text transcript,” according to Microsoft. After a conversation, interview or meeting, users can “revisit parts of the recording by playing back the timestamped audio and edit the transcription to make corrections.” Users can save the full transcript as a Word document or “insert snippets of it into existing documents.”

In June, Microsoft announced its new Money in Excel product. The offering lets Microsoft Personal and Microsoft 365 Family users enter all of their financial information into one place and display it on spreadsheets and charts.

The company said the new system would also continually update the user’s finances, checking the latest balances in bank, loan, investment and credit card accounts.

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