Microsoft OneNote Copilot: Empowering the Era of Intelligent Handwritten Notes

2024-07-15

Microsoft is actively promoting the activation of the Copilot feature in OneNote, aiming to provide users with unprecedented intelligent handwriting processing capabilities. This feature has entered the beta testing phase at the end of the month, empowering OneNote users to not only enjoy the convenience of automatic summarization and intelligent questioning after writing notes freely with a stylus, but also generate to-do lists based on the note content, greatly improving work efficiency and experience.


Of particular note, Copilot, with the help of advanced artificial intelligence technology, can accurately convert handwritten notes into editable and easily shareable text formats, breaking the limitations of traditional handwritten notes in digital applications. Since its initial appearance in November last year, this feature has been continuously optimized and is now being tested more widely for Microsoft 365 Copilot subscribers and Copilot Pro users.


According to preliminary test feedback, Copilot has shown high accuracy and flexibility in recognizing handwritten notes, capturing and summarizing even complex and varied handwriting styles, including small or large handwriting. What is even more remarkable is that the generated text retains the original intention and incorporates a natural fluency, avoiding the common "fabrication" problem of generative AI, which is rare in the industry.

For users who are accustomed to writing to-do lists in OneNote, Copilot's instant text conversion function is undoubtedly a great boon, as it can instantly convert handwritten lists into clear text lists, making subsequent management and execution easier and more efficient.


However, there is still some unknown about Copilot's ability to handle extremely complex or difficult-to-recognize handwriting fonts. Although similar technologies such as Samsung Galaxy AI have performed well in automatically formatting handwritten lists, they may still encounter bottlenecks when facing extreme challenges.

If you are eager to be the first to experience this innovative feature, you need to meet specific conditions: become a Microsoft 365 Insider member, ensure that you are running the latest version of OneNote on the Windows platform (version number not lower than 17628.20006), and have a Copilot Pro subscription or Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription qualification.