Today, at the Ignite 2018 event, Microsoft introduced a redefined search experience called Microsoft Search for its users. It is a unified, AI-powered search box that will span across Windows, Office, Bing and more.
Microsoft Search isn’t the end of Bing. Think of it as a combination of Bing and localized search results you find in Windows applications. The software giant has combined the traditional search results with app features, commands, and personalized results to create Search.
Soon, Microsoft Search will be present in a central position in all Office apps to help users find commands and features in results alongside documents and web results.
The new search box will be contextually aware, and it would help users to find people, related content, proactive search results and suggestions even before they start typing in it.
Since the revamped Search makes use of Microsoft Graph (centralized application programming interface) along with Bing’s knowledge of the world, you can ask it natural language questions as well.
For questions like, “Can my brother work for me at my company?” Microsoft Search can syntactically parse the question with semantic understanding.
Since your organization’s HR policy would probably specify rules related to “family relationships,” Search can use Bing’s knowledge coupled with “brother” in its query to find an answer from your organization’s intranet.
This major overhaul seems to be an ambitious effort by Microsoft to beat Google — which is eons ahead in providing unified search, seamlessness and personalized experience across all its apps.
Microsoft Search will be rolled out to Edge, Windows and entire Office 365 suite in the coming months and early 2019. But if you’re an Office 365 business user, you can preview the new Microsoft Search changes on Bing.com or Office.com from today itself.
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