My Word. Microsoft's prepping Similarity Checker for retirement

Microsoft is retiring Word's Similarity Checker on October 3 and stripping the feature from Microsoft Editor. Other writing and editing tools, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, won't be affected. But if an organization uses Similarity Checker as part of its workflow, it's time to consider alternatives. Similarity Checker has been around for a few years. Launched in 2020, the Bing Search-powered service compared text from the user to online sources and came up with a percentage score - how much of the text was similar to those online sources. The user could then add citations if appropriate, or try again for originality. Microsoft had previously said: "This can aid writers in focusing less on the mechanics of writing, and more on the content." Word's citation capabilities will not be affected by the retirement, nor will its spelling and grammar checking tools. Although Microsoft's AI assistant is unaffected, Microsoft warned, "Copilot is not intended to serve as a formal similarity, plagiarism, or originality validation tool." Plagiarism spotting and similarity checking have become all the more important in recent years. Turnitin, for example, added features to identify AI-generated text, and there is evidence that plagiarism-detecting tools have had an impact (although there are plenty of other nefarious uses for AI.) The writing for the Similarity Checker in Word has been on the wall for a while now. Although Microsoft has not shared usage statistics, it did hint that users were giving it a swerve: "This change allows us to focus on experiences and capabilities that are more broadly used across Microsoft Word." The functionality is certainly at odds with the Copilot-All-The-Things fever that has gripped Microsoft in recent years, despite Microsoft's insistence that Copilot is not a tool for formal similarity checking. That said, there were a few alarmed users when the tool stopped working for a few days in 2023. After October 3, 2026, the Similarity Checker will stop working for good and cease to be accessible through the Editor experience in Word. (R)