Microsoft OneNote, a year in review: AI innovation and enhanced creativity

Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! OneNote has served as a powerful tool for note-taking, collaborating, and advancing productivity for over 20 years. Over the past year (2024), we further refined and expanded the user experience and added new capabilities. At the start of the new year, we wanted to reflect on some of our biggest achievements backed by insider support and feedback.

Supercharged workflows with AI

One of the most significant enhancements over the past year has been the integration of Copilot into OneNote. You can now leverage natural language prompts to pull or summarize relevant information and generate notes, content, agendas, or to-do lists based on sources across Microsoft 365 apps, such as documents, messages, and emails. Quick actions directly from the Copilot icon on the canvas makes these scenarios efficient and seamless, ensuring users stay in the flow of note-taking while Copilot does the heavy lifting. With advanced AI capabilities, students, educators, professionals, and everyday users can now enrich their documentation, fast-track content creation, improve task management, and better prepare for meetings and brainstorming sessions.

Learn more about the benefits of leveraging Copilot in OneNote:

• Gather and create notes with Copilot in your personal OneNote notebooks directly on the page
• Quick actions with Copilot now at your fingertips in OneNote on Windows
• Increase productivity with Copilot in OneNote for iPad and Mac for commercial customers

A streamlined meeting experience

We know how important it is to run efficient and effective meetings, no matter the context. We continue to invest in a positive meeting experience in OneNote with refreshed and improved Meeting Details that make it easy to consolidate and reference essential information in one place, share notes, sync calendars and other data with participants, and create and track action items. AI-generated transcripts and recaps are automatically incorporated into the Meeting Details experience, further streamlining collaboration and communication. Loop components in OneNote make lists and tasks accessible, shareable, and editable by anyone in real time – without having to switch between apps.

Learn more about the enhanced Meeting Details experience:

• Refreshing the Meeting Details experience in OneNote for Mac and iPad
• Evolving the Meeting Details experience across Microsoft 365 apps and services

Handwriting gone digital and powered by AI

Handwriting and drawing are the most natural ways to create content and communicate, so we want to make it as easy and seamless for you to leverage Pen & Ink capabilities in your digital note-taking as possible. Copilot in OneNote can read and analyze handwritten text as well as typed text via the ribbon and from the canvas, allowing you to iterate on, reorganize, and expand upon your writing without having to rely solely on a keyboard. Improvements to ink annotation make handwritten text more visually organized and coherent, and selecting or moving ink in PDF printouts and images a smoother and more polished experience. The interactive ink tutorial introduces you to ways you can use ink in your notes and provides hands-on activities you can try to test your newly acquired knowledge.

Learn more about leveraging Pen & Ink features in OneNote:

• OneNote Copilot now supports inked notes
• Interactive ink tutorial in OneNote
• More improvements to ink annotations on PDF printouts and images in OneNote
• Enhance your inking with handwriting straightening in OneNote on Windows
• Keep ink annotations with images and PDF printouts in OneNote
• Introducing the Ink Selection multi-tap gesture in OneNote on Windows

Enhanced productivity and creativity

Our goal is to help you work – and live – smarter, and 2024 saw OneNote get a big boost in the productivity department. KeyTips are now available in OneNote for Mac, enabling you to navigate and perform tasks solely with your keyboard. A new eyedropper tool was added to OneNote on Windows that lets you choose and use any color from an image, shape, or inked note. New pens and pen icons in the Draw tab, and the ability to customize your own set of pens in the drawing toolbox, promote maximum creativity and brand cohesion. Meanwhile, the Sticky Notes app on Windows makes collecting notes or ideas in the moment intuitive and simple.

Try these features today:

• KeyTips now available in Office for Mac
• Pick any color with the new Eyedropper tool in OneNote
• Introducing the new Sticky Notes app on Windows
• Unleash your creativity with new pen tools in OneNote

 

Lastly, we can’t forget to mention the most celebrated OneNote blog in the past year, a feature that makes working together on documentation effortless: Collaborate using Loop components in OneNote. 

Your feedback makes us better

We hope that these improvements have inspired you to take advantage of new and improved capabilities in OneNote and level-up your note-taking game. We value your ongoing support and insightful feedback as it inspires us to continually innovate and enhance our products as an essential tool for millions around the globe. Every suggestion and comment you share plays a pivotal role in our journey towards excellence. Please keep them coming and help us make OneNote the best product it can be for YOU using any of these methods!

 

Thank you for being a part of our amazing history, and for helping us craft the future of writing and working together.

 

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