Microsoft Word uses AI to improve your writing

Microsoft is about to challenge Grammarly (not to mention Google) on its home turf. The company is developing an Ideas feature for Word's online version that uses AI to suggest grammar changes, among other assists. In addition to catching basic errors, it can recommend rewriting phrases to improve concision, clarity and inclusiveness. Your report might be more to-the-point without requiring quite so much proofreading.

Ideas could be just as crucial for reading. The machine learning can estimate reading times, pluck the key points from a given text and even explain acronyms. You might not have to skim an article (or ask for an executive summary) if you don't have time to read a long piece.

A Word Designer, feature, will help you style tables and other parts of a document.

The technology should be available in preview form sometime this June, and everyday users in the fall. These won't necessarily entice you to use Word if you're already deep into tools like Google Docs. However, many people use Word as a matter of course -- Ideas could have a significant impact on productivity through Microsoft's sheer ubiquity in the personal computing world.