Microsoft Office on Microsoft StoreSource: Windows Central

What you need to know

  • Microsoft Excel now supports natural language queries for Office Insiders.
  • The feature allows people to ask questions naturally.
  • Microsoft announced the feature at Ignite 2019.

Microsoft emphasized artificial intelligence support for several apps and services at Ignite 2019. One app that will benefit from this AI push is Microsoft Excel, which now supports natural language queries for Office Insiders.

Support for natural language queries means that people can ask Microsoft Excel questions without having to memorize specific formulas. Microsoft has not shared any specific examples of questions that can be asked but explains the general structure of the feature.

Now Excel supports natural language queries, so users can now ask a question of their data, just like they would if they were talking to a person, and get quick answers—all without having to write a formula.

In addition to supporting natural language queries, Microsoft announced AI-related features for other parts of Microsoft Office as well as Cortana. MyAnalytics is now able to suggest actions in Outlook, such as booking a meeting, adding an item to an agenda, and following up on meetings.