Microsoft is making its Copilot Researcher tool significantly smarter by making two AI models work together. The update introduces two new modes called Critique and Council, both using a combination of OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. Critique has one AI write the research report while a second independently checks it
For the first time in more than 20 years, Google is rolling out the ability to change your @gmail.com address without starting over. That means you can keep your existing inbox, Google Drive files, YouTube history, subscriptions, and purchase records, all under a brand new email address. The feature is
Apple is entering the business productivity market and it is not charging a cent to do it. Starting April 14, 2026, Apple Business will be available in more than 200 countries as a free platform for companies of any size. It will eventually bundle email, calendar, directory services, built-in mobile
Microsoft finally gave Word the Ctrl+Shift+V shortcut for pasting plain text. It is a change that millions of people wanted, but it came at a cost: several long standing keyboard shortcuts had to move or disappear entirely, and the rollout created a mess in Outlook that took months to fix.
If you have ever inserted a picture into Microsoft Word and found it stubbornly stuck in the wrong place, you’re not doing anything wrong. Word’s default image setting, “In Line with Text,” treats every picture like a giant letter in your text. The fix that with a single change to
Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers all have access to Copilot AI, but what that access means in practice varies enormously from plan to plan. The 60 AI credits per month cap that applies to Personal and Family plan owners is a hard ceiling for the most common Copilot
Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat now has two tiers of access, and which one you get depends entirely on whether your organization pays for a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Users without a paid license get “standard access,” meaning slower response times, reduced feature availability during busy periods, and possible throttling. Users
Need to add a gender symbol to a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or Outlook email? Microsoft Office supports all three main gender symbols: Male ♂, Female ♀ , and the combined symbol ⚥ . Both in Office for Windows and Office for Mac. Whether you are labeling a form, a
The “Message body includes” rule in Microsoft Outlook sounds like exactly what you need to filter emails by their content. But it has a critical limitation: it only scans the first portion of the visible text in an email, not the entire message. That means any keyword buried below the
Microsoft is switching off free Copilot Chat inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for millions of Microsoft 365 business users starting April 15, 2026. Unless your organization pays for a full Microsoft 365 Copilot license, the AI chat panel that appeared in those apps will either vanish completely or be
You do not need Adobe Acrobat, a subscription, or any paid software to merge, split, or combine PDF files. There are free Windows tools available and Mac includes built-in tools that handle the job in minutes. Whether you want to strip out the fine print from a travel itinerary, combine
A faulty Windows 11 update released on March 10, 2026 broke sign-ins for Teams Free and what Microsoft called “other apps”. Those “other apps” included Microsoft Word, Excel, OneDrive and Edge! If you use a personal Microsoft account and got a fake “no internet” error when trying to open Office
If you have a Markdown (.md) file and need it in Microsoft Word, you have more options than you might think. From pasting text directly into Word Online to letting an AI do the heavy lifting in seconds, each method has its strengths and sweet spots. This Office Watch guide
Markdown is a plain text formatting system that lets you write **bold**, # headings, and bullet lists using just your keyboard, no toolbar clicking required. Created in 2004, it has quietly become the common language between humans and AI tools as well as a ‘distraction free’ way to write. We’ll
Paul Brainerd, who coined the phrase “desktop publishing” and turned that idea into one of the most influential pieces of software in personal computing history, died on February 15, 2026, at his home on Bainbridge Island, Washington. He was 78 years old and had lived with Parkinson’s disease for many
When an attacker breaks into a Microsoft 365 or Exchange account, changing your password is not enough to stop the damage. Hackers can silently plant inbox rules that forward, redirect, or delete your emails without you knowing. Worse, a known flaw in Microsoft Exchange allows those rules to be made
Microsoft’s new Outlook for Windows has a Rules feature, but it is not the Rules you know. The Outlook (new) ditches client-side rules entirely and replaces them with server-based rules only. That means several actions you may rely on today, like playing a sound alert, running a macro, printing a
Outlook email rules let you take control of a chaotic inbox by telling Outlook exactly what to do with messages the moment they arrive. Instead of manually sorting newsletters, flagging messages from your boss or deleting routine notifications, a few well built rules handle it all automatically. This guide explains
Outlook Rules are not the only way your email gets sorted, moved, or deleted. Microsoft has built at least eight other features into Outlook and Microsoft 365 that can manage messages automatically or with a single click. From Focused Inbox and Sweep to Quick Steps, Archive, and retention policies, each
Need to type a Spade ♠, Heart ♥, Diamond ♦ or Club ♣ symbol in Microsoft Office? There are actually eight playing card suit symbols available, including solid and outline versions, and they work across Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook on both Windows and Mac. Here is every way to
Excel’s new COPILOT() function lets you pull AI generated data directly into spreadsheet cells, but our hands on testing reveals a serious problem: the facts it returns are frequently wrong. Copilot() delivered errors that ranged from subtle omissions to outright fabrications. Before you rely on COPILOT() for anything beyond brainstorming,
Microsoft is removing the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel as an installation option for unmanaged devices in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Organizations that rely on this channel to slow down Office feature updates now need to decide whether to stay put, do nothing, or move to a managed tool like Intune
Microsoft Word’s blue underlines are supposed to help you write better, but they can feel more like a fight. When Word flags perfectly correct sentences or pushes grammar rules you disagree with, you are not stuck with Word’s defaults. Whether you want to silence one specific check, fine-tune dozens of
Microsoft designs the Office ribbon for first-time users and its own marketing goals, not for the way you actually work. The good news is that you’re not stuck with it. In Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook you can rearrange the ribbon in just a few clicks, moving the tools you
