A young man with glasses looks down at his phone.

Text predictions in Word for Android

Feature deep dive
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Hi, Office Insiders! My name is Sai, and I’m a Program Manager on the Word team. I’m excited to share with you that text predictions are now available in Word for Android to help you type faster and with fewer mistakes.

Text predictions

Typing on a phone is not easy and can be quite frustrating. Yet, we know that you want to be as productive while on your phone as you are when sitting in front of your laptop at home or in the office.

AutoComplete is helpful when drafting simple documents, but it is not sufficient when composing more complex and verbose content. Text predictions improve the quality and accuracy of the suggestions by using Machine Learning to predict the next set of characters as you type. 

Document with text predictions

How it works

When drafting or editing a document on your phone, you will notice a word or words, formatted as grey text, appearing to the right of your cursor as you are typing. This grey text is a prediction that Word makes based on the content you are typing. To accept the suggested text, simply swipe right anywhere on the document. If the text predictions are incorrect, just continue to type or swipe left on the screen to dismiss and ignore them. 

Text Prediction feature demo

Privacy

When you use text predictions, Word uses a Machine Learning model to generate and continually improve the accuracy of the suggestions. This model runs completely on your device and Microsoft doesn’t collect any information. The feature will work even if you are not connected to the internet.

Requirements

In order to try out the feature, you must be a Microsoft 365 subscriber and logged in to your Microsoft 365 account.

Availability

This feature is available to Insiders running Build 16.0.14131.20012 or later.

We typically release features over some time to ensure that things are working smoothly. This is true for Insiders as well. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Similarly, sometimes we remove elements to improve them. Though rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product.

Feedback

If you have any feedback or suggestions, you can submit them by tapping Settings  >  Send Feedback, and then tapping I like something, I don’t like something, or  I have an idea.

Learn what other information you should include in your feedback to ensure  it’s actionable and reaches the right people. We’re excited to hear from you! 

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