Microsoft Syntex: AI-Powered Knowledge Management 

Introduction 

How many documents do you think your business handles each year, month, week, or day? 

Whether it’s contracts, proposals, invoices, videos, or anything else, there are petabytes worth of documents sitting on local machines across the UK. And they’re not just in digital space either – this type of content can also be found stuffed in filing cabinets.  

Whether it’s online or off, the common thread with these documents is that they’re siloed and unstructured, disconnected from a central repository and difficult to reference.  

This means employees like yours can spend countless hours sifting through folders and files looking for specific knowledge which should be easy to find. Even worse, without a central tool, they’ll continue to host files in locations where nobody else can easily find them.  

It’s here that Microsoft Syntex enters the picture.  

What is Microsoft Syntex? 

It’ll come as no surprise that UK businesses generate a vast amount of data and content – both digital and hard copy – on a daily basis.  

But managing and extracting meaningful insights from this content can be a daunting task, especially when you and your teams are already strapped for time. That’s where Microsoft Syntex comes in.  

Microsoft Syntex is a unique technical solution which combines the power of AI (everybody’s favourite 2023 buzzword) and machine learning with the productivity tools of Microsoft 365 you already use to help your business organise, automate, and extract valuable information from your content. 

In short, it allows you to supercharge your document tracking, collection, and storage while adding advanced search, translation, and summarisation tools using AI to make connections across your complete knowledge repository – saving you time and resources.  
 

Why do organisations use Microsoft Syntex? 

Before we get into the technical details of how Syntex works its magic, let’s start with a simple question: just why should you use Microsoft Syntex? 

• Automated content processing. With Microsoft Syntex, you can automate the processing of your content, reducing manual effort for your employees and improving efficiency. The AI-powered nature of Syntex extracts the essential information from documents and automatically populates structured database fields, saving you valuable time. 
• Enhanced knowledge management. Syntex uses its AI and machine learning tools to assist with document translation, summarisation, and content assembly (more on this later), making it easier to access and share relevant information across your business. 
• Smart querying. Once added to Syntex, you’ll be able to find very specific information across all your document base in double-quick time. By leveraging AI, Syntex can understand the context of your queries to provide accurate results, meaning almost anyone in the business can find what they’re looking for fast.  
   

What is “Content AI”, exactly? 

“Content AI” is the name Microsoft gives to its underlying technology behind Microsoft Syntex.  

The concept behind Content AI is that Microsoft’s machine learning models can understand and analyse the content you work with, whether it’s documents, images, or other types of data. By training AI models using your content as the source, Syntex can automatically extract the most important information, classify your documents, and generate insights. That turns what begins as unstructured data into actionable knowledge for anyone to use – and fast. 

What types of content is Microsoft Syntex best suited for? 

One of the biggest strengths of Microsoft Syntex is its versatility. It can be applied to a wide range of content types and is particularly powerful when it comes to interpreting large amounts of unstructured data.  

For example: 

• Contracts and legal documents. Syntex can automatically extract and classify key contract details, enabling faster contract review and analysis. 
• Customer support interactions. By analysing customer support tickets, Syntex can identify patterns and provide recommendations for issue resolution to improve customer satisfaction. 
• Compliance and regulatory documents. Syntex can automate the processing of compliance documents by extracting relevant information and ensuring any regulatory requirements are met. 

How Syntex enhances your knowledge management 

Now let’s break down the core features of Syntex. Once you begin populating your document libraries, what can Syntex actually do with them? 

• Document processing. Microsoft Syntex will extract structured information from unstructured documents, such as invoices or receipts. This reduces the risk of human error and makes the processing time much quicker.  
• Translation. With Syntex, you can easily translate documents into different languages, breaking down language barriers and making it easier to collaborate across borders. 
• Summarisation. Syntex can generate concise summaries of lengthy documents, enabling you to quickly grasp the main ideas without having to slog your way through every single line. 
• Content assembly. Syntex allows you to assemble and organise content from various sources to form a single connected workflow or story. This makes it much easier to create reports, presentations, and other assets.  
• Content query. With the advanced search capabilities Syntex offers, you can quickly search for highly specific information within your content repositories, safe in the knowledge that the AI will be able to link documents semantically.  

How to start using Microsoft Syntex 

Microsoft Syntex is currently available with two different pricing models: pay-as-you-go and per-user licensing. In either case, you’ll need an active Microsoft 365 Business subscription.  

There are certain tasks within Syntex which require an add-on per-user license, so that’s the one we’d recommend, and is currently priced at £4.10 per user, per month (plus VAT, with annual commitment).  

The other unique factor with Syntex is the cost of the AI modelling required to power some of its functions. In plain English, every time you upload an unstructured document, you’re “training” the AI model to be able to extract data in the way you want it to for that format. This naturally incurs a processing cost, so Microsoft has developed an AI Builder credit system which gives each Syntex user a monthly allowance for training the tool.  

Whether or not this applies to you will depend on the specific type of content you’re hosting, and how structured (or unstructured) it is.  

To learn more about Syntex or to discuss the specifics of its pricing model for your business, please contact your Get Support account manager who’ll be happy to help.