A ‘Box for Microsoft 365 Copilot’ plugin is being launched, to provide a “more useful and valuable” content management experience.
Describing itself as the “leading Content Cloud”, Box has also announced enhanced capabilities to its integration with Microsoft 365, which will improve features for sharing, editing, and collaborating in Teams and Office products, such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new AI assistant and productivity tool that was launched earlier this year to assist users with their daily work across the M365 portfolio.
Diego Dugatkin, CPO at Box, spoke about the value of the integration to enterprise customers: “We’re at the start of a new era in software driven by breakthroughs in AI, and nowhere is the potential impact greater than in enterprise content.
“We recently announced Box AI to combine foundational AI models with content stored in Box to unlock the value of this content and make every person in a company smarter and more productive.
Dugatkin continued: “Integrating with Microsoft 365 Copilot is a natural extension of our AI strategy, and our existing collaboration will allow joint customers to use Box and Microsoft 365 Copilot together seamlessly.
“We are excited to provide continued support to our joint customers to unlock new levels of productivity and transform the way work gets done.”
Box for Microsoft 365 Copilot
The new Box plugin will mean users no longer need to search through both Box and Microsoft to find specific information in files and folders.
Instead, customers can rapidly bring together their shared documents in Teams to gain insights from collaborators.
They can also ask questions about shared content to increase the rate of milestone completions within a project.
Box can also help to quickly get customers up-to-date on conversations, saving them from having to laboriously scroll through chats and channels to find the relevant information themselves.
Box for M365 Enhancements
New enhancements to Box for Microsoft 365 allow users to share and edit Box Notes in Team’s Chats and Channels, unifying content and preventing fragmentation within organisations.
Instant permissions can be granted to synchronise user access to files across Box and Teams.
Access policies can be set to switch off OneDrive and SharePoint entry points for groups, as well as enterprise and individual access policies.
Co-authoring on Box for Microsoft Office desktop has also been made available this month to customers in the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel as part of Microsoft’s Version 2302 release.
This capability enables users to collaborate in real-time on Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, with all edits automatically saved to the Box.
Access to advanced features across Microsoft Office desktop apps will increase productivity, according to Box.
Users also gain the ability to access, preview, edit, and share files from Box Drive, plus the web and Office desktop apps.
Srini Raghavan, VP of Product Management for Microsoft Teams Ecosystem, commented “We are at an extraordinary moment in the technology landscape, where AI is reshaping industries and transforming how we work.
“Through expanded integrations between Microsoft and Box, we are bringing new tools and capabilities to our customers to enhance productivity and collaboration.”
Box and Microsoft already provide a range of integrations for joint users, including accessing and sharing Box content in Teams Chats and Channels; opening, editing, and saving Box files in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel; converting attachments to Box shared links; the Box Connector for Microsoft Graph, and more.
In March 2023, UC Today reviewed Box for Microsoft Teams, in which it listed key features and recommended learning resources to find out more about the Microsoft-Box partnership.
