It required two years, however, Microsoft is finally prepared to allow regular clients to give its most recent make an effort collaborative work. On the web, Android, and iOS, the company is offering a public preview of its Loop app. This allows users to work on projects using live-updating components that can be integrated into Microsoft 365 applications like Word and Outlook, as demonstrated in 2021. For example, you can put a table in a Word document that changes as users change it.
In addition, you can comment, respond, share project pages, track progress, and assign tasks that are synced with Planner and To Do. If you find something that inspires you while you are away from your computer, you can contribute photos using your phone.
Microsoft is, as you might expect, cramming AI into Loop. To help you get started, Microsoft 365 Copilot will make suggestions based on AI. You can ask the Copilot for assistance in creating a mission statement or a workspace document summary.
To use the mobile apps today, you’ll need a work account, but anyone can use Loop online. Microsoft claims that personal support for mobile devices is “coming soon.” Copilot is currently only available for private testing, but it should be available in the coming months.
This is not Google Wave redux, as we stated at the Loop reveal. In a time when emoji are commonplace and people thrive on apps like Asana (for task tracking) and Slack (for chat), it’s more of an attempt to sync collaborative efforts. The problem for Microsoft is simply convincing people to use its method. Naturally, this won’t help those who are still using Google’s productivity suite. However, Microsoft will also need to convince users that Loop can take the place of a number of other collaborative apps they may already be using.