Helping workers to be more collaborative and productive is always one of the key areas of focus at Microsoft Corp.’s developer-focused Build conference, and this year is no different.

Kicking off the three-day conference today in Seattle with a keynote by Chief Executive Satya Nadella (pictured), the tech giant added a host of new productivity-related features for both developers and ordinary workers to its Microsoft 365 suite, which bundles together Office 365 with Windows 10 and its enterprise mobility and security products.

Microsoft is beginning with the basics. While all the buzz these days seems to be centered around fancy new artificial intelligence software, the most important tool used by the majority of workers is still the trusty old internet browser. But compatibility issues mean that workers are often forced to use multiple browsers in order to get all of their tasks done, slowing them down as they’re forced to switch among different versions of the same tool.

Recognizing that, Microsoft last year said it would be rebuilding its Edge browser from the ground up based on the open-source Chromium project, which also underpins Google LLC’s popular Chrome browser. Announced today, the latest version of Microsoft Edge is the fruit of that effort, with one of its key features being a new Internet Explorer Mode that enables to run legacy IE-based apps while still enjoying the full features that a modern browser provides.

The greater compatibility also extends to Chrome extensions, with Microsoft promising that the bulk of these should now run in Edge with no problems. In addition, the browser gets a new set of privacy tools that enable admins to set one of three levels of privacy according to their security protocols. Users can pick from Unrestricted, Balanced or Strict privacy settings, which adjusts how they can be tracked across the web.

Interactive experiences across the web

Microsoft also announced a new developer-focused effort that intends to foster collaboration no matter which browser people are using. The company’s Fluid Framework, which will be rolled out later this year, is billed as a developer platform for creating “shared, interactive experiences” across the web.

Some of the capabilities Fluid Framework promises will include support for coauthoring of web content and documents across multiple browsers and platforms. It will also provide what Microsoft describes as a “componentized” document model that allows content to be deconstructed into “collaborative building blocks” that can be used in various apps or combined into more flexible documents. The Fluid Framework also makes it easier to integrate intelligent, or virtual agents powered by AI, so these can perform tasks such as translating text, fetching content and suggesting edits.

Microsoft has promised to make Fluid Framework available to developers via a software development kit later in the year.

“The Edge Fluid Framework was the most compelling Microsoft 365 announcements,” said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, who said it reminds him of Object Linking and Embedding, or OLE, for the web on steroids. “It enables a worker to make a change to an object, like a spreadsheet, and that change automagically shows up on a website,” he explained. “The real-time nature with less than five-millisecond response time commitment is impressive.”

‘Smarter’ intelligent agents

Sticking with intelligent agents, Microsoft has revealed a new “conversational engine” for developers that it hopes will make them smarter and “chattier” and henceforth more useful. One of the main problems with virtual agents today is they’re constrained due to their reliance on manually created skills that map what people say to a series of possible actions in the back-end system. The problem, Microsoft said, is that virtual agents today can’t combine skills very well or continue the context of one interaction into the next one.

But with tomorrow’s virtual agents, that shouldn’t be a problem, since Microsoft is integrating the technology from a company called Semantic Machines Inc. it acquired last year with its main bot-building developer platform, the Bot Framework. Semantic Machines specialized in “conversational AI,” and Microsoft said this technology can tap into various back-end services, including both its own and also those of third parties.

Doubling down on data

In another announcement, the company said it will open up its Microsoft Graph technology to developers with a new “data connect” feature. Microsoft Graph is a service that provides more context about how an organization’s work flows across various documents, applications and devices.

With the data connect tool, organizations will be able to tie this information together with their own business data to get more insights on “effective work patterns” that can boost productivity and also make this combined data available to select applications. Microsoft Graph data connect is being made generally available as a feature in Workplace Analytics and as a standalone service.

Less distractions, more answers

The rest of the Microsoft 356 updates announced today are meant to help regular workers get their heads down and focus on their most urgent tasks. They include general availability of the Microsoft Search feature that was introduced in preview last year. The Microsoft Search box will now appear prominently across services such as Bing, Office, Outlook, OneDrive, Sharepoint and Windows, and can be used to find documents, content and other information from across the company’s entire productivity suite.

MyAnalytics, meanwhile, is a new service set to be launched in the summer that will help workers to prioritize their “focus time,” which are blocks of time they reserve on their calendars for when they want to work without interruptions. Microsoft 365 experiences such as Microsoft Teams will automatically protect scheduled focus times by holding notifications, the company said.

In addition, workers will soon be able to take key actions from Microsoft Outlook without needing to switch between different apps. A new feature called Adaptive Cards in Outlook makes it easy for people to approve reports, grant access to documents or book focus time directly from their inbox. Adaptive Cards in Outlook will be launched in the summer.

Last but not least, Microsoft 365 is getting a new “Ideas in Word” feature that will be made available in preview in June. Ideas in Word is essentially an AI-powered editor in the cloud that provides intelligent suggestions as workers write, helping to make their text more “concise, readable and inclusive.” The tool relies on machine learning, and can, for example, suggest better ways to write complex sentences so they’re more easily understandable.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Photo: Microsoft/livestream