Outlook on the web gets a smarter address book, lets you add automatic flight events

Microsoft today announced some new features coming to Outlook on the web. For those unfamiliar, Outlook on the web is the email client on Office 365 and the new Outlook.com which is currently available to some users.  Today, the software giant introduced a smarter address book, and the ability to automatically add flights to your calendar.

The smarter address book will now offer suggested contacts. When you place your cursor in the To: or Cc: boxes on Outlook, it will show a list of suggested accounts based on your previous emails. Additionally, Outlook will also now show name of people you email frequently. Microsoft states this feature will work even if you spell someone’s name incorrectly – for instance, if you don’t write a lot of emails to someone called “Kathryn” and mistakenly write their name as “Cathrine” on the To: or Cc: boxes, Outlook will suggest the correct contact – despite the fact that the contact’s name is spelled incorrectly.

In addition to a smarter address book, Microsoft also introduced the ability to automatically add flight events to your calendar. This feature is very useful and it will save you from a lot of hassle. For example, if you receive a flight confirmation, you no longer have to manually add the flight’s details to your calendar — Outlook on the web can now do that for you. Yep, Outlook on the web will gather “key information” from an email like a flight confirmation and it will allow you to automatically add the flight to your calendar.

Microsoft will begin rolling out automatic flight events in early 2016 to Office 365 First Release customers and the new Outlook.com. The company is planning to roll out this feature broadly in March 2016. Additionally, Microsoft will start rolling out the smarter address book starting in mid-January to the Office 365 First Release Customers. It will be broadly available in early March. Also, the smarter address book will be available on Outlook for PC, iOS and Android in the first half of 2016.