Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has introduced its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Reading Coach as a standalone app, expanding its availability beyond Microsoft Teams. The app is accessible as both a Windows application and a web app, and it is now offered for free, making it accessible to a wider audience. Users can access it using a Microsoft account, catering to both classroom and home use.
The Reading Coach app delivers personalized reading practice with instant feedback on pronunciation and fluency. It provides valuable insights for educators to gauge learners’ progress and customize their teaching strategies accordingly. Learners can generate unique AI-generated stories by selecting characters and settings from a curated collection, ensuring content quality, safety, and age appropriateness in line with MSFT’s Responsible AI guidelines.
The app employs the Immersive Reader for the reading surface, supporting struggling learners with options to adjust text size, font, background color, and other elements for a more comfortable reading experience. The speech-to-text AI feature analyzes reading fluency, detects challenging words, and records accuracy, speed, and time spent reading as learners read the story aloud.
The Adaptive Practice tool dynamically adjusts to the learner’s abilities by incorporating challenging words from previous chapters into the next one, ensuring continuous improvement. Readers can influence the story’s progression by choosing outcomes in each chapter, creating an interactive and engaging reading experience. Coaching on challenging words, effort-focused badges, and unlocking new characters and settings serve as incentives to keep learners engaged and motivated, particularly for reluctant readers.
Reading Coach aims to offer a comprehensive and adaptive approach to reading improvement, integrating technology, personalization, and motivational elements to create a positive and effective learning experience.
Microsoft also announced several AI updates for educators and students, including enhancements in Microsoft Copilot and Loop. Copilot is now available to a larger group of faculty and higher education students, while Loop will be accessible for A3 and A5 plan holders. Integration with Reading Coach is also set to arrive in popular learning management systems, including Canvas, in late spring.
Microsoft’s efforts in advancing AI capabilities underscore its commitment to staying ahead in the AI landscape, competing with industry giants like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)-owned Google, and Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE).
Microsoft, with a 9.6% gain in the past six months, has outperformed the Computer & Technology sector’s rise of 6.3%, but trails behind Amazon, Alphabet, and Adobe, which have returned 15.6%, 15.9%, and 11.5%, respectively, in the same period.
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Author Stephanie Bédard-Châteauneuf