Microsoft recently announced that users will have the ability to search using Bing without having to navigate between Microsoft Office and their browser of choice. Known as Insights for Office, this tool works by scanning the user’s document and based on the query selected, making an educated guess as to what the user could potentially be looking for.
Microsoft’s goal is to increase overall productivity and remove an unnecessary step of having to access a search engine to get the answers one needs. The search results are ranked by order of importance and display some critical and helpful information.
As you can see from Bing’s Official Blog, Ryan Gavin, used former President Abraham Lincoln as an example of how Insights from Office works. This is perfect for people writing research papers as the software is smart enough to realize that the paper is on the topic of the former President of the United States not the movie or something similar in that nature.
The way this software works is by indexing and storing information from around the web of a number of different people, places, and things. Insights from Office is able to take all the content from a user’s document and provide a resource that is both relevant and content rich. Insights from Office also gives you the opportunity to explore the topic further by clicking on “More quick insights” to access the full scope of the web.
Within the next few days we should see this new feature from Office emerge, so keep a look out!