Microsoft Loop has just arrived in today's video we're going to give you everything that you need
to know about Loop and what it does how it works a little bit of a preview of it and also summarizing
my personal thoughts about where it's heading for Microsoft so I'm very very excited and I'm going
to take you along for the ride with Microsoft Loop so let's dive in so welcome there my name
is Francesco D'alessio I am very excited I'm a big fan of productivity tools so if you are new
to keep productive do subscribe it'd be great to have you and if you want to find the perfect
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so let's start with what Microsoft Loop is now fundamentally Microsoft Loop has been around for a
little bit of time it's been around in the name of fluid framework which is basically this model or
experience that Microsoft built so the components could be accessed through multiple my of 365 apps
so say you're editing something here in Microsoft teams and it can show live what it was doing in
OneNote and that was a really cool concept and they've weaved it all together mashed it up into
Microsoft Loop now it is similar to notion but I will get into that later on to start I want to
summarize Three core features of it and then move on to a demo so the three core features include
workspaces pages and components components being the most interesting element of this so let's
start with workspaces now very simply workspaces are essentially projects they're different areas
or spaces that you can go into and naturally build a different workspace view whether that's bringing
in um different tools like things that already exist in Microsoft like a OneDrive link or a Excel
link whatever it is you can bring it all into that workspace and you can actually build stuff inside
of there so this is sort of separating things out the second is pages and that's basically each
page can be a different thing it can be a canvas for you to start writing and creating components
but it can also be an Excel sheet or a Word document whatever it be it allows you to do that
and third and most importantly is Loop components remember what I was saying at the start about Loop
components being these things that live between different applications well they are real they're
living now well loot components have been around a little bit inside of Microsoft teams and outlook
for some time now but now they're this formulated experience and you can create components so for
example if I create a component inside of a page that component can live in multiple locations be
edited in real time with other people so what's different about that to say someone like Google
Docs is if you're in Google Docs you're in Google Docs and say I sent that via Google Chat you still
have to go out to link to Google Docs it's not breathing breathing and living so for example if
you're in Microsoft teams and you've pasted a loop component or you created a loop component from
there you could share that Loop component with other people and they'd see what is happening in
real time as long as they're in a Microsoft 365 app that allows Loop components to be posted and
naturally utilized it is a really really exciting element of this and really does take it that step
further so I want to pause show you the demo video that they have launched with today's update and
then we're going to come back and we're actually going to look at Microsoft Loop and I'm going to
give you some things about it that I really like and a little bit more about how it works
say goodbye to the frustration of jumping between apps and losing track of documents and ideas
Microsoft Loop transforms the way you work so you can think plan and create
together like never before Loop is made up of workspaces pages and components
let's break it down create together with shared workspaces for each of your projects on the
loop homepage you can access all your existing workspaces and create new ones
in a loop workspace you can bring everything you need for your project together in one place
to kick off a workspace Luke can even do the searching for you making it easy to add
existing project related information and organize it into Pages continue
adding to your workspace as your project evolves and organize it the way you want
Loop pages are flexible canvases where you can react comment and build on each other's ideas
notifications help you track the things you care about and focus on what matters all while staying
in the flow of your work co-pilot in Loop helps you ideate and co-create get inspired
with AI powered contextual suggestions to transform the way you create together
don't let app barriers slow your project down easily share information with people
outside your workspace with Loop components components are portable pieces of content that
stay in sync across all the places they have been shared no matter where they are updated
you can share components and create new ones like lists tables paragraphs and more across
your favorite Microsoft 365 apps you're always in control because it's easy to
see where components were shared and who has access however you work wherever you
work Loop enables teams to sync plan and create together like never before thank you [Music]
so here we are with the public preview and naturally I've been given access to it early
and I've been playing around with it so this naturally isn't necessarily the final version
so just FYI if you see or spot any issues so as I said it's broken into three parts what you've got
here to initially start is the workspace so you can create a new workspace based on a project that
you have that you might want and you can utilize some of these icons as I said it's probably
uh still being worked on in the background so it won't necessarily
be the final version but here you can update the cover and I've titled it workspace here you can
invite people as well now what I find particularly cool is this function so there's actually some AI
content suggestions initially added to Loop which I find pretty cool so if you have anything in your
Microsoft 365 areas that is connected I actually don't have that many because I set up a Microsoft
account specifically for this but I can bring in certain things that live already in different
areas these are all Loop things so it's a bad example but you can bring in word different files
different things like that and you can actually use keywords to prompt it to search in other
places so really cool I actually should I um I'll add the welcome area bang can't create so it's
now gone and created me a new area and you can see from here it's very notion X it's very clear it's
very nice simple looking I want to start in the top left hand corner so notifications you can see
here that Kevin mentioned me here in another area this is the place where we've just been literally
going mental so um FYI um so notifications you can have them live across the different areas that
you have so this is now a different area so I can actually go back and find it here so that's quite
a cool one for jumping across I'm sure they'll add something that allows you to jump across hey it's
come on Jay sorry come on Jay you can find and move across your workspace so that's really cool
I'm a loop Pro not um so up here there's a really nice one where you can see recent stuff this is
cool because it's across all of the locations and workspaces and you can see who's active now which
is really nice I love this area I think notion should add something like this but I guess it's
sort of like private notion but here what you can do is create ideas so you can make spaces
that naturally don't get interrupted with other people's thoughts so that's really cool shared
ideas you could have things pretty slim there and you can move workspaces here you can browse all
of them start a new one sort them based on tree of hierarchy or activity which is really nice and I'm
going to start showing you a page because else I will be here for Ages page B you can add an icon
you can add a cover and you can use some of Microsoft's pre-installed one so you may
notice down here this is really nice you've got some very simple structured template it's only
10 so definitely falling behind um many of the other competitors but if I use this template Bang
I can go ahead and create stuff and you can create like this is a table here so you're
thinking oh this is a very cool little table I can interact with it and if you kept this
inside of loop then uh you know it's pretty simple like in terms of his abilities like but
this is where I can invite people as well which is cool but if I were to switch on the magic
let me find the magic it's here um I'm really bad at controlling loop at the moment I need
to be a loot Pro and I can create this into a loop component and you can see instantaneously
this ring appears around the loop component and what's cool here is I can copy the component so
when I copy the component I can bring it into other applications I can share on email and
I can move forward with it which is really cool so other things that you can do is you can carry
on editing and this will be in real time modified which is really cool and you can move stuff about
um I quite like how Dynamic and easy it is to be able to move stuff it feels quite Snappy
I don't know it's marginal but I wouldn't say this is drastically behind anything that's
out there already it is quite responsive quite fast and you've got other abilities like sorting
hiding columns you have not got proper filtering yet and naturally some of the other elements you
might have but this is now a loop component I can share in different places which is very very cool
and if I go up to the top here I can see okay what do I want to share do I want to share the
workspace to page link or do I wanted to embed the loop component in other places so that's
how that works up here now the settings are very basic because I'm in here but you can go to a dark
mode if you did want to let's show you the welcome page so this is a bit of it demonstrated so yes I
am active on this page but you can naturally have other people interact with you and the same goes
on mobile 2 to be a really interactive workspace I've got nice breadcrumbs here very simple
um nice and easy here so I can create a new page or add a new link so if you ever have any URLs
that you're like okay this is in Trello then you can have it weaved in here so other aspects of
it let me see if anything's knocking about you can also copy it as a loop component as a whole
so that's quite cool so that's speedier way of doing it top right hand corner I could sign out
there's nothing really more and that's why I will explain why it's sort of still not fully fully
there compared to likes of say notion uh in terms of its abilities so we were just literally just
posting and playing around with the the concept I like this though here we go this is a good way to
demonstrate shared locations you can actually see where that's shared and who has access to
it which is really cool so I really like that ability and you can see who's been interacting
with it as well so that is the public preview of Microsoft Loop okay so now you've had a look at
the public preview of Microsoft Loop what is the opinion there are a few questions already out here
um where is Microsoft Loop going what is it going to do with the AI side of stuff and how does it
compare to notion I think those probably the three ones that mainly people have so where is Microsoft
Loop headed I really like components I think components is a really interactive experience that
saves time going into files and that monotonous work something you can update in real time but
it's really really nice to use the only thing I think will struggle will be the organization
of components and that's sort of where Loop pages and workspaces are for but is also the
sort of where is everything in my areas will be interesting to see and evolve for Microsoft
Loop but I definitely think it's quite exciting and where it's heading is definitely a big step
forward for my soft and the way that I see it is a little bit the way that I see Microsoft teams and
before the pandemic they were really falling behind with slack and then suddenly when the
pandemic happened because the distribution they had a lot of people using Microsoft 365 I think
it almost four acts to 5x the amount of users post pandemic and that's a really interesting
thing that Microsoft has because so many people use them that the distribution access for those
using it actually really works in its favor so I think because it works across lots of different
things people might just start moving to loop as this sort of like Middle Ground buddy that they
can just use to get work done faster so I think that's quite exciting and I'm just waiting for
that distribution to really tie things up and really understanding the message especially I
also think that Loop can go much much further with AI I we have seen some stuff with the AI but I'm
probably going to do a separate video because naturally in the public preview I'm not sure
they're fully ready to explain that I demonstrated some of the stuff in the preview video we just did
but I don't want to talk I want to talk about how that is separately because I have some
opinions there so uh what were the other things um number two I think is about notion notion is such
a a large Market at the moment and Microsoft obviously saw that with the canvas abilities
they sort of added the workspace and Pages as a way to directly compete with notion but I don't
think it's necessarily there yet I think notion has a lot of elements that really takes it a
lot further I think there are some nice things in Microsoft Loop like ideas recent and some of the
AI abilities that are core and grounded to what you have in Microsoft already that are definitely
time saving but I think the issue that Microsoft face is the fact that you have to be using
all of the Microsoft services to take advantage of loop so if you want a message you have to be using
teams if you want to communicate with OneNote you have to be using OneNote and there's these
fragmented experiences whilst you can communicate with these components across the platforms there
is naturally a struggle there so I do think that's going to be quite a big element initially I don't
think people are going to be leaving in droves to go from notion over to Loop but for example
if a large team already uses three six five and they're looking to cut costs especially during
some particularly difficult times that we may potentially be facing as time goes on and and
even now then I think maybe that would be more financially viable to weave everything into what
you already have so that's why I'm coming back to distribution it could potentially
be beneficial to move back to Microsoft Loop and just have everything live there and breathe there
so it could potentially work in that favor if there was say something that pressured people
to reduce their expenditure on their subscriptions and things like that just a hypothetical thought
to this but of course teams are looking to save money and save stress loads at the same
time so that was Microsoft loop I will be doing a separate video on the AI elements of Loop and how
that affects it but if you are interested in some other videos that we've done we've done a video
about Microsoft co-pilot 365 if you want to check it out and of course you can check out our wide
range of videos over on keeper productive or find the best productivity tool for you Anton finder
anyway Folks at a big big big big big thank you very much and I hope to see you back in
another video at Microsoft Loop a very interesting solution from Microsoft that has a long way to go
but still very very thank you very much everyone and I'll see you all very soon cheerio [Music]