Microsoft is bringing a new productivity and collaboration canvas to Microsoft 365 subscribers called Loop. The company announced the app and said it aims to merge elements from various Office apps like Word, Excel, and others into one collaborative canvas.
Loop is essentially a rebranding of Microsoft's Fluid work, which the company has been working on for a long time. It comes with three parts: Loop components, Loop pages, and Loop workspaces. Microsoft describes it as "a new app that combines a powerful and flexible canvas with portable components that move freely and stay in sync across applications."
Loop is very similar to the popular collaboration app Notion in that both offer a blank canvas where multiple people can come together to get stuff done. Of course, Loop has the benefit of being offered by Microsoft and the fact that it stays in sync with other Microsoft 365 apps. That means you'll be able to switch between working in Loop and in your individual versions of Word, Excel, and other apps.
You and your team can use Loop to pull in links, files, or data along with whatever you're working on. Much like Notion, a team can create small projects and manage them within Loop, or they can create massive ones with all sorts of files, pages, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.
Microsoft also touted a new feature called Context IQ, which will be implemented in all Microsoft 365 apps, including Loop. Basically, it's an AI that uses Microsoft Graph to help you get more work done. It will help with scheduling meetings when everyone is available, entering known data, and so forth.
Some key features are missing from Loop, though. Microsoft said that it intends to add tables, status trackers, notes, and task lists to the app, but for the time being, users will have to do without.