Microsoft 365 Personal and Family Subscriptions: Here’s How We Use It

We use Microsoft 365’s applications in many areas of our work, from idea conceptualisation to presentation preparation and more. Students will also be familiar with applications, from Word to Powerpoint and even Excel. We speak to Liat Ben Zur, CVP Microsoft, Modern Life, Search & Devices to learn more about what people can look forward to with the new Microsoft 365 personal and family subscriptions, including upcoming features with Microsoft Teams and an all-new Family Safety app.

When asked if there are any tips and tricks to using Teams, and what we can expect from it, Liat mentioned that it’s now much more consumer-friendly: “we really want to streamline how you communicate with your friends and family by offering one hub to connect and collaborate across both your work and personal life.”

Over the last few years, Microsoft has been introducing a lot of AI-powered features to help users create rich, professional-looking documents. One of the more notable additions is Editor, which not only checks grammar but also provides style enhancement suggestions.

There are rewrite suggestions and even options to choose from, like concise explanations, paraphrased sentences and more. For people who prefer to speak rather than type, there’s even a Dictate feature which allows users to voice their thoughts out loud and the application will transcribe that into text in real-time.

Moving on to PowerPoint, there’s an interesting Live Captions feature that is great for getting content across to more people who might not be able to join in otherwise. When speaking, the program automatically captions what’s being said, and it can even translate!

Public speaking is one of the biggest fears a lot of people have, so Microsoft has implemented an AI coaching feature in PowerPoint called the PowerPoint Presenter Coach, which gives real-time feedback while the speaker is delivering the presentation. It can range from anything like feedback to not read off the slides too much, pitch, reading pace and even whether the speaker is using too many filler words.

Outlook makes a return, and it’s better than ever. Personal and work calendars can now be linked and viewed together to better manage your day. OneDrive also allows for quick uploading and downloading of files, even if they’re large files that might take a long time on other cloud storage platforms.

OneDrive also has a lot of recovery functionality built-in, with the ability to restore deleted files and photos. Uploaded files are also protected with built-in ransomware so users will be able to recover files even if there is an attack.

For parents, there’s even a new Family Safety App that will help understand how children are spending their time on supported devices. There are so many more features and we’ve barely scratched the surface, but long story short? Microsoft 365 definitely puts a whole new spin on productivity.

This content is brought to you in partnership with Microsoft.

To purchase a Microsoft 365 subscription, click here.