Windows 11 will analyze the text you've chosen and suggest actions.

Microsoft is working on a number of new features for Windows 11, and it has recently begun testing one of them: a new text selection popup that appears similar to those found on the iPhone, iPad, and Android.

Insider Preview for Windows 11 On Wednesday, Windows Insider testers began receiving Build 25115, which includes a new feature called suggested activities. "When you copy a date, time, or phone number, Windows will recommend activities relevant to you, such as scheduling calendar events or making phone calls with your favorite apps," Microsoft noted in a blog post.

The new feature is similar to what has been offered for several years on Android, iPhone, and iPad, where installed apps can propose actions for specific types of text. In Microsoft Teams, when you choose a phone number, you'll see a button to call it (Teams on some organizations can place outgoing phone calls). When you select a date, buttons appear in Outlook and the Windows Calendar apps for adding events.

Popups on text selection can be bothersome, but according to the blog post, the popup appears only when text is copied to the clipboard and a suggested action is available. The Register asked Microsoft if third-party programmes could be modified to accommodate suggested actions, but the company did not respond.

With the introduction of Android 6.0 Marshmallow in 2015, Android implemented a basic version of this feature, allowing apps to add actions to the text selection menu. It was recently upgraded to provide different alternatives depending on the text highlighted, similar to suggested actions in Windows 11 — for example, if you highlight an address, the first option is normally to open the address in Google Maps. The iPhone and iPad have a similar feature, however you must first choose text and then hit 'Share.'

Although the new functionality in Windows 11 appears to be useful, implementations on other platforms (particularly Android) have encountered issues. When the Outlook app was loaded, Microsoft was detected adding a Bing search shortcut to Android's text selection menu, leveraging Outlook's popularity to advertise an unrelated service. Unless Microsoft prohibits third-party programmes from adding alternatives, third-party apps may do the same with Windows suggested activities, limiting their use.