What you need to know
- Microsoft announced at Ignite 2023 that Planner is getting additional functionality.
- The separate Microsoft products, Planner, To Do, and Project will streamline into Microsoft Planner in 2024.
- Of course, all of this will be aided by the power of Microsoft's Copilot for AI help.
Microsoft is currently holding its annual Ignite 2023 tech conference in Seattle, and one of the big announcements coming out of the event is that in Spring 2024, Microsoft is planning to combine "Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft Project into a single, unified experience called Microsoft Planner" in the Planner app. It will later roll out to the web later in 2024.
This new Planner experience promises to use the Power of AI and Microsoft's now ubiquitous Copilot to help users manage their work and achieve their goals.
What is changing with Microsoft Planner?
- Microsoft is making its own Arm chips
- Copilot comes to all of Microsoft 365
- Bing Chat rebranded to Copilot
- Microsoft Loop now generally available
- Microsoft Mesh and Immersive Spaces
- Microsoft Planner merges To Do and Project
- Microsoft launches Copilot Studio
- Microsoft Security Copilot
- Copilot web app goes live
There is still very little insight into the major changes that will be available in the Planner app, at this point, Microsoft is promising a miraculous uplift in productivity and ease of use as they are with all of their products that are being integrated with Copilot.
Microsoft Planner has been integrated with To Do on Mac for a while now so that tasks on one app would show on the other, but what is proposed now really seems to be a retirement of To Do and Project and placing all of those into just the one Planner app.
If you're looking for help learning how to use Microsoft Planner check out the official Planner support site for helpful guides.
This is reminiscent of the killing off of Mail, People, and Calendar for a single Outlook experience instead. Speaking of, are you looking for an option for a Mail app once Microsoft sunsets the Mail app? Wino is a Mail app alternative that is just getting started out that you should give it a try.
The integration of these different applications/services makes sense. They are really very similar task-based goal and project-oriented applications that, hopefully, combined as one can be the best of all parts and not lose some of what made them great in the transition.
