Skip to main content
Microsoft 365
Subscribe
Image of a man sitting on a countertop with a laptop in his lap.
3 min read

New to Microsoft 365 in December—AI-powered tools to help you create your best work

By
  • Kirk Koenigsbauer, Corporate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Experiences and Devices

This month, we released new features in Microsoft 365 that enable you to reach broader audiences, increase your efficiency, and focus on your most important tasks.

Here’s a look at what’s new in December.

Reach more people and create your best work

New AI-powered features across Microsoft 365 empower you to deliver presentations that are accessible to broader, more diverse audiences and to be more efficient in your flow of work.

Present more inclusively with Live Captions and Subtitles in Microsoft PowerPoint—A new feature, powered by Microsoft AI, enables presenters to reach and engage all audiences with live presentation captions and subtitles that automatically appear in real-time. With Live Captions and Subtitles in PowerPoint, you can ensure your presentations are understood by everyone, across languages and hearing access needs. This feature will support presenters across 12 spoken languages and display on-screen captions or subtitles in one of 60+ languages. Starting in January 2019, this feature will start rolling out to Office 365 subscribers worldwide for PowerPoint on Windows 10, PowerPoint for Mac, and PowerPoint Online.

Image of a tablet showing a PowerPoint slide about oceans. Live captions are running on the bottom of the screen.

Get tricky acronym definitions automatically in Microsoft Word—Using the Microsoft Graph, Microsoft AI makes suggestions for acronym definitions specific to you and your organization while you read documents. This makes it easier for you to read documents with clarity in the flow of your work. To get started, click the Acronyms button on the References tab to launch the Acronyms pane and see suggested definitions for acronyms. This feature is beginning English-language rollout for Office 365 subscribers.

Screenshot of the Acronyms pane open in Microsoft Word.

Reuse existing slides in new PowerPoint presentations—Instead of recreating slides from scratch, quickly find and reuse slides from your files or from others in your organization with the help of Microsoft AI in PowerPoint. Simply click the Reuse Slides button on the Home tab to surface existing PowerPoint decks in the sidebar to browse through recommended PowerPoint decks that you have access to, view the slides in each presentation, and insert them into the deck you are creating. This feature will be available in January for all Office 365 subscribers.

Animated image of a laptop open, PowerPoint's Reuse Slides feature on its screen.

App updates to help you achieve more

We’re introducing enhancements to some of your favorite Office apps that make it easier to focus on your work.

Faster, more focused experiences with the new design of Outlook for iOS—We’re starting to roll out updates to Outlook for iOS tailored to help you get things done faster. With more context available at a glance, you can connect, organize, and get more done. The new design includes recognizable avatars for instant recognition, optimized swipe with haptic feedback, and dynamic scrolling to easily see more inbox messages.

Animated image of a phone switching between Focused Inbox and Other in Outlook mobile.

Increase your focus with support for macOS Mojave Dark Mode—Office for Mac support for macOS Mojave Dark Mode makes it easier on your eyes when you want to focus on your work or you’re working in low-light environments. And the updated user interface (UI) for Office for Mac makes it easier to find the features you’re looking for with crisper and sharper icons. macOS Dark Mode and UI refresh for Office for Mac will roll out to all users over the next few weeks.

Image of a MacBook Pro open, PowerPoint displayed in Dark Mode on its screen.

Other updates

  • The password-less protection for access management white paper is now available to help guide you in reducing your risk exposure with alternatives to passwords such as biometrics and public key cryptography in Windows 10 PCs and many of the latest mobile devices.
  • New features in Microsoft Bookings help you better manage your appointments with enterprise-grade security controls, an improved mobile app, and integrations with Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, and third-party payments.
  • New Graph APIs in Teams provide automation capabilities to help streamline the process of creating and customizing teams.
  • Files uploaded to Office 365-connected Yammer groups will now be stored in SharePoint, providing enhanced security and compliance capabilities, including DLP, eDiscovery, conditional access, and retention policies.

Editor’s note 12/17/2018:
Post was updated to reflect the most up-to-date availability information for Reuse Slides and Live Captions and Subtitles in PowerPoint.

Editor’s note 12/18/2018:
Post was updated to reflect the most up-to-date availability information for Acronyms in Word.