RIP Microsoft Lens, a easy little app that is getting changed by AI | TechCrunch

Typically, it’s good to have a easy app that does one factor nicely with out a number of fuss.

Microsoft Lens was that kind of app: a cellular doc scanner that turned paper paperwork, enterprise playing cards, receipts, and anything into simply readable digital recordsdata. Now, that app is being discontinued, Microsoft says, because it directs its customers to its Copilot AI chat app as an alternative.

In response to a brand new assist doc, Lens will probably be retired from iOS and Android units beginning on September 15, 2025, then faraway from the Apple App Retailer and Google Play on November 15, 2025. Present customers will have the ability to proceed to make use of the app’s scanning capabilities by way of December 15, 2025. After that date, no new scans will probably be doable, however entry to prior scans will stay within the app so long as it stays on the person’s machine.

First launched in 2015, Microsoft Lens (then often known as Workplace Lens) advanced from an software initially designed for Home windows Cellphone units. Whereas its core performance was much like different cellular scanning purposes, it didn’t attempt to upcharge customers for sure performance or push them right into a subscription — a rarity in right now’s App Retailer.

As an alternative, it carried out its process of turning any observe — handwritten or in any other case — doc, receipt, enterprise card, and even whiteboard scribbles into the file format of your alternative, like PDF, Phrase, PowerPoint, Excel, or pictures. It additionally supplied a wide range of built-in filters to reinforce the ensuing picture, lighten the doc, flip it right into a sharper black-and-white copy, and extra.

You possibly can then save the file to certainly one of Microsoft’s apps, different on-line companies, or your digital camera roll. It was easy, and it labored nicely.

The app’s impending shutdown was first noticed by the positioning BleepingComputer, which factors out that customers are being directed to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which lacks all of the performance present in Lens. Whereas Copilot can deal with scanning, it doesn’t assist saving these scans on to OneNote, Phrase, or PowerPoint, nor does it save enterprise card scans to OneNote. It additionally lacks Lens’ accessibility options like read-out-loud and Immersive Reader integration, the positioning notes.

Regardless of its age, Lens stays pretty widespread, having pulled in over 322,000 downloads on the App Retailer and Google Play over the previous 30 days, based on information from app intelligence supplier Appfigures. Since January 2017, it has been downloaded 92.3 million occasions, the agency’s information reveals.

Microsoft has not but responded to a request for touch upon its choice to close down Lens.