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Microsoft (MSFT) Makes AI-Powered Reading Coach Free for Users
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Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) announced that its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Reading Coach is now available as a standalone app, expanding its accessibility beyond Microsoft Teams. It is offered as both a Windows application and a web app.
The app is available for free, making it accessible to a broader audience. Users can access it with a Microsoft account, making it suitable for both classroom and home use.
Reading Coach provides learners with personalized reading practice, offering instant feedback on pronunciation and fluency. The tool provides insights for educators, helping them understand the progress of learners and tailor their teaching accordingly.
Learners can create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection. The AI ensures content quality, safety and age appropriateness, following MSFT’s Responsible AI guidelines.
The reading surface is designed with the Immersive Reader, which supports struggling learners. This feature includes options for adjusting text size, font, background color and other elements for a more comfortable reading experience.
As learners read the story aloud, the speech-to-text AI feature analyzes their reading fluency, detects challenging words and records accuracy, speed and time spent reading.
The Adaptive Practice tool automatically adapts to the learner's abilities by incorporating challenging words from previous chapters into the next one, ensuring continuous improvement.
Readers have the opportunity to influence the story by choosing what happens in each chapter, creating a more interactive and engaging reading experience. Learners receive coaching on challenging words after each story chapter, promoting continuous learning and improvement.
Effort-focused badges and the unlocking of new characters and settings serve as incentives, keeping learners engaged and motivated, especially for those who are reluctant readers.
Reading Coach aims to provide a holistic and adaptive approach to reading improvement, combining technology, personalization and motivational elements to create a positive and effective learning experience.
MSFT’s Copilot would be available to a larger pool of faculty and higher education students. Microsoft initially opened up Copilot to education faculty and staff (through Microsoft 365) at the beginning of January 2024. The company also brought extended eligibility to Office 365 A3 and A5 faculty customers and removed the 300-seat purchase minimum, making these tools accessible to more organizations. Office 365 A3 and A5 are two of the company's education licensing tiers.
Microsoft Loop, the company's AI-powered collaboration app, will also be available for A3 and A5 plan holders. For A1 holders, MSFT's cheaper Education license tier, A1, will be able to create workspaces and pages (with continued access after) though Loop until Jun 30, 2024. After that, an upgrade to A3 or A5 will be required to access the full Loop suite.
The company also announced that integration with Reading Coach will also be coming to popular learning management systems, including Canvas, in late spring. This will allow educators to integrate learning plans created through Reading Coach directly into their LMS.
MSFT is updating Microsoft Teams for Education and Microsoft Reflect with a new tool to aid the learning process. Classwork will help educators organize and create content for students. The feature's AI hooks will also assist in suggesting content based on subject and student age range.
The company is now offering AI for Educators Learning Path on its Microsoft Learn online education platform. This new path will break down the benefits of AI technology in the classroom and present real-world use cases for educators to enhance their teaching through platforms like Copilot.
Such initiatives underline Microsoft’s efforts to rapidly evolve its offerings in an attempt to stay ahead of rivals, such as Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) , Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) -owned Google and Adobe (ADBE - Free Report) in the AI arms race.
Microsoft, which has gained 9.6% in the past six months, has outperformed the Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s rise of 6.3% but underperformed Amazon, Alphabet and Adobe. AMZN, GOOGL and ADBE have returned 15.6%, 15.9% and 11.5%, respectively, in the same time frame.
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Microsoft (MSFT) Makes AI-Powered Reading Coach Free for Users
Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) announced that its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Reading Coach is now available as a standalone app, expanding its accessibility beyond Microsoft Teams. It is offered as both a Windows application and a web app.
The app is available for free, making it accessible to a broader audience. Users can access it with a Microsoft account, making it suitable for both classroom and home use.
Reading Coach provides learners with personalized reading practice, offering instant feedback on pronunciation and fluency. The tool provides insights for educators, helping them understand the progress of learners and tailor their teaching accordingly.
Learners can create unique AI-generated stories by choosing characters and settings from a curated collection. The AI ensures content quality, safety and age appropriateness, following MSFT’s Responsible AI guidelines.
The reading surface is designed with the Immersive Reader, which supports struggling learners. This feature includes options for adjusting text size, font, background color and other elements for a more comfortable reading experience.
As learners read the story aloud, the speech-to-text AI feature analyzes their reading fluency, detects challenging words and records accuracy, speed and time spent reading.
The Adaptive Practice tool automatically adapts to the learner's abilities by incorporating challenging words from previous chapters into the next one, ensuring continuous improvement.
Readers have the opportunity to influence the story by choosing what happens in each chapter, creating a more interactive and engaging reading experience. Learners receive coaching on challenging words after each story chapter, promoting continuous learning and improvement.
Effort-focused badges and the unlocking of new characters and settings serve as incentives, keeping learners engaged and motivated, especially for those who are reluctant readers.
Reading Coach aims to provide a holistic and adaptive approach to reading improvement, combining technology, personalization and motivational elements to create a positive and effective learning experience.
Microsoft Corporation Price and Consensus
Microsoft Corporation price-consensus-chart | Microsoft Corporation Quote
Microsoft Announces Education AI Enhancements
This Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) company has announced a handful of AI updates aimed at educators and students, including new and enhanced features in Microsoft Copilot and Loop. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
MSFT’s Copilot would be available to a larger pool of faculty and higher education students. Microsoft initially opened up Copilot to education faculty and staff (through Microsoft 365) at the beginning of January 2024. The company also brought extended eligibility to Office 365 A3 and A5 faculty customers and removed the 300-seat purchase minimum, making these tools accessible to more organizations. Office 365 A3 and A5 are two of the company's education licensing tiers.
Microsoft Loop, the company's AI-powered collaboration app, will also be available for A3 and A5 plan holders. For A1 holders, MSFT's cheaper Education license tier, A1, will be able to create workspaces and pages (with continued access after) though Loop until Jun 30, 2024. After that, an upgrade to A3 or A5 will be required to access the full Loop suite.
The company also announced that integration with Reading Coach will also be coming to popular learning management systems, including Canvas, in late spring. This will allow educators to integrate learning plans created through Reading Coach directly into their LMS.
MSFT is updating Microsoft Teams for Education and Microsoft Reflect with a new tool to aid the learning process. Classwork will help educators organize and create content for students. The feature's AI hooks will also assist in suggesting content based on subject and student age range.
The company is now offering AI for Educators Learning Path on its Microsoft Learn online education platform. This new path will break down the benefits of AI technology in the classroom and present real-world use cases for educators to enhance their teaching through platforms like Copilot.
Such initiatives underline Microsoft’s efforts to rapidly evolve its offerings in an attempt to stay ahead of rivals, such as Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) , Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) -owned Google and Adobe (ADBE - Free Report) in the AI arms race.
Microsoft, which has gained 9.6% in the past six months, has outperformed the Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s rise of 6.3% but underperformed Amazon, Alphabet and Adobe. AMZN, GOOGL and ADBE have returned 15.6%, 15.9% and 11.5%, respectively, in the same time frame.