Box, Inc. has announced a new plugin for Microsoft’s next-generation AI workplace tool, Microsoft 365 Copilot. In addition, Box announced updates to its integrations with Microsoft 365 that provide joint customers with enhanced features for sharing, editing, and collaborating within Microsoft Teams as well as Office products including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

“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,” said Diego Dugatkin, Chief Product Officer at Box.

“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. 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 at an extraordinary moment in the technology landscape, where AI is reshaping industries and transforming how we work,” said Srini Raghavan, VP of Product Management for Microsoft Teams Ecosystem.

“Through expanded integrations between Microsoft 365 with Box, we are bringing new tools and capabilities to our customers to enhance productivity and collaboration.”

The Box plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot will make it easy for customers to leverage the Box Content Cloud through interactions with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Instead of spending time digging for information in files and folders saved across Microsoft and Box, this new integration will allow users to:

• Quickly synthesize and summarize all their shared Box documents in Teams to draw insights from collaborators.
• Ask questions of shared content to derive major milestones in an existing project.
• Limit the need to scroll through Chats and Channels in order to get up to speed more quickly on conversations and new learnings.

Enhanced Box for Microsoft 365 Capabilities

In addition to Box’s plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Box released several new enhancements to its broader Teams integration to enhance the way users find, preview, access, and work with their Box files while collaborating with colleagues and partners. With this improved integration, users can:

• Share and edit Box Notes directly in Team’s Chats and Channels, which helps to unify content and reduce fragmentation within an organization.
• Grant instant permissions to automatically synchronize user access to files across Box and Teams, which maintains Box’s security posture across their file content.
• Select Box as the default cloud content management solution in the Teams environment for the entire tenant, certain groups, or specific users using access policy settings within Teams.

Box for Microsoft Office desktop co-authoring is now also available to customers in the Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel as part of Microsoft’s Version 2302 release available in July 2023. With this enhanced capability, all users can:

More flexibility to collaborate in real time on files in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel desktop apps — with all edits auto-saved back to Box.

Increased productivity with access to advanced features across Microsoft Office desktop apps.

Ability to preview, access, edit and share files from Box Drive, the Box web app, and the Office desktop apps “Add a Place” functionality.

Box will roll out its plugin for Microsoft 365 Copilot as Microsoft makes its service available to eligible customers. Box and Microsoft 365 customers can start using the Box for Office desktop co-authoring feature, the Box Connector for Microsoft Graph, and the enhanced productivity and collaboration capabilities in Teams today.