Microsoft announced that it will officially discontinue the “Similarity Checker” feature in Microsoft Word on October 3, 2026. Since its launch in 2020, this feature has used Bing search to compare documents with online sources and generated similarity scores to assist students in marking citations or help teachers identify duplicate content. Microsoft stated that this discontinuation is aimed at improving the overall user experience of Word, and it is clear that Copilot is not a tool for formally verifying similarity, plagiarism, or originality. Users affected will need to find alternative solutions, but Microsoft 365 Copilot and other writing tools will remain unaffected. Editing features such as grammar correction, spelling checking, and style suggestions in Word will continue to be available.
Microsoft announced that it will discontinue the built-in Bing similarity check feature in Word on October 3, 2026.
Coverage · reports per dayLANGUAGE SPLIT
Coverage mixSOURCE MIX
Chinese media 1English media 1
Entity relations
Integrated timelineUNIFIED TIMELINE
2026-09-04
The Register confirmed the discontinuation of the Word similarity checker.
The Register reported that Microsoft will remove this Bing Search-driven service to focus on a broader Word experience.
2026-09-05
Media focused on the impact of the discontinuation of the Word Bing feature.
IT Home reported that Microsoft will discontinue this feature on October 3, pointing out that it was used by students for citing references and teachers for plagiarism checking.
Microsoft will cease using the “Similarity Checker” feature on October 3 and remove it from Microsoft Editor. The Bing Search-driven service, introduced in 2020, used to generate similarity percentage scores by comparing text with online sources, allowing users to add citations or retest to verify originality. Microsoft states that this change is aimed at enhancing the overall Word experience, but warns that Copilot is not officially designed as a tool for similarity, plagiarism, or originality verification. Organizations affected are advised to consider alternative solutions, while Microsoft 365 Copilot and other writing tools will remain unaffected. The citation function and spelling and grammar checking tools in Word will continue to be available.
Microsoft will discontinue the “Similarity Checker” feature in Microsoft Word on October 3, 2026. This feature was introduced in July 2020 and used Bing search to compare documents with online sources to help identify similar text and add citations. It was used by students to mark content that needed citation and by teachers to detect duplicate risks. However, media has noted that it is not a professional academic review tool, and its results are not highly reliable. After the feature is discontinued, Word will still retain editing capabilities such as grammar correction, spelling checking, and style suggestions.