Microsoft Word aims for productivity boost by automatically making to-do lists for users

A new beta feature being tested out by some Mac for Office Insiders brings added productivity features to Microsoft Word. The word processor can now automatically detect notes and messages you leave for yourself and others and turn these into actionable to-do lists. All you need to do is type in things like “todo” or “<insert something here>” in a document and Word’s AI-powered writing assistant Editor will create a list based on these items. It can even suggest things based on recent documents and files. For example, if you type in "<insert graph here>," it’ll show you recent charts you’ve worked on. If you’re collaborating with someone in a Word document, you can @-mention these colleagues to let them know what tasks need to be done. The tagged person will get an email and can even take action on the document by replying directly to said email.

As mentioned, it’s first available to Mac for Office Insiders who are on the Fast level, which is a group of users that get features first to provide feedback. Slow level Insiders will get a more stable version at a later date. The Windows version is expected to land in the coming weeks. It’ll eventually be rolled out to all existing Office 365 users. The other Office apps will get the feature later on.

 Source: Engadget