OneDrive is investing in improved sharing and organizational options for enterprise customers, however shoppers are being left behind: Microsoft will add media-centric search and AI capabilities, however that gained’t happen till subsequent yr. That will embody the power to look photographs by means of facial recognition, a characteristic Google debuted about seven years in the past.

Microsoft executives referred to the updates as “OneDrive 3.0,” a salt shaker of granular options being added to Microsoft’s cloud storage. For now, the largest modifications are in group: You’ll be capable to seek for OneDrive files in a people view, as Microsoft has tipped earlier than. OneDrive can also be utilizing among the current Windows 11 22H2/23H2 updates to File Explorer as a mannequin to put advisable information in a carousel view on the prime of the OneDrive web page.

Basically, OneDrive is including numerous views, so information will be organized by who shared them, in the event that they’re related to imminent conferences, and so forth. Those modifications can be found for enterprise customers, so in the event you log in to OneDrive.com with your enterprise credentials it is best to see the brand new modifications right now.

Microsoft additionally outlined its roadmap for upcoming OneDrive options.

In December, OneDrive will extra carefully combine with Word, Teams, Outlook, and extra. You’ll begin to see OneDrive seem within the left navigation bar of Teams and Outlook, for instance, so you’ll be able to bounce proper to the relative information.

Mark Hachman / IDG

In early 2024, Microsoft is including offline entry to the online model of OneDrive. Put one other method, you’ll see Files on Demand (aka placeholders, which might make Windows 11’s restore and backup process worse) in your record of OneDrive information within the internet app. The excellent news is that Microsoft is pairing this with an offline mode, so that you’ll be capable to open an area copy of the file in your PC, edit and make modifications to it, and people modifications shall be quietly synced as soon as you come back on-line. By summer time, Microsoft will allow you to create information (resembling new Word paperwork) by launching them from OneDrive itself.

Unfortunately, you’ll even have to attend till mid-2024 to see the brand new “Media View” in OneDrive. This basically makes any photographs saved in OneDrive, resembling your Camera Roll, equal to the Photos app on Windows 11 — you’ll see a listing of photographs as photographs, in graphical view. According to Jason Moore, the vice-president accountable for product administration for OneDrive, that will even embody pure language seek for OneDrive: Searching for “photographs within the mountains with Katherine within the fall” will carry up related photographs.

Mark Hachman / IDG

That’s a bit extra refined than what rivals supply, although it nonetheless arrives years late. Google started providing to index photographs by facial recognition in about 2016. Microsoft’s indexing might transcend that, but it surely’s nonetheless years late.

Naturally, the way forward for OneDrive is Copilot integration: Being in a position to question OneDrive, textually, for information and summaries, and all the pieces that Microsoft 365 Copilot may do. But executives stated within the Q&A chat fields through the Teams 3.0 launch that they’re nonetheless figuring out what number of information must be query-able by Copilot, and the way giant of a file might be accessed, summarized, and queried. Those questions must be tacked onto an even bigger one: When will Microsoft roll out Copilot for OneDrive? That’s the large one, and one Microsoft declined to reply.

Storage, Windows