Structured, Inc.

Ever tried to find the right person in Outlook and ended up clicking around for longer than you’d like?

This one’s for you 😅

For something so central to how businesses run, contact search has always been a bit clunky.

That’s why this latest update from Microsoft caught my attention 👀

They’ve introduced a new “People” experience in Outlook.

It’s aimed at fixing a very real, everyday problem: Finding the right person quickly without digging through layers of organization charts and folders.

The biggest change is how search works.

As soon as you start typing, results begin to appear straight away.

Not just names either. It can pull in job titles, departments, and other details, so you’re not relying on remembering someone’s exact name.

It also learns from how you work, so people you interact with regularly are more likely to show up first 🥇

That might sound like a small improvement, but when email and communication sit at the center of your day, those small annoyances add up.

What’s also useful is that everything is brought together in one place.

Your company directory, your personal contacts, even linked accounts all feed into the same search.

Once you’ve found the person, you can message, email, or call them straight away, without jumping between apps or opening multiple windows.

There are a few other quality-of-life tweaks in there too 🌟

You can view contacts in a clearer table layout, act on several contacts at once, and organize people into categories that make sense for how you work.

Things like key clients, suppliers, or project teams become easier to group and manage.

These improvements change the feel of something people use all day, every day. And that’s really the point.

When we talk about productivity, it’s easy to focus on big features or new tools.

But a lot of lost time comes from tiny interruptions. Searching for someone. Switching between apps. Clicking through layers to get to a simple action.

Reduce enough of those, and the working day starts to feel smoother without anyone needing to learn something new.

This update is rolling out across desktop and web versions of Outlook, and it ties in closely with Microsoft Teams, which makes sense given how closely those tools now work together.

💡 If you added up all the small bits of friction in your day, how much time do you think they’re costing you each week?