Why is the Researcher function not working in MS Word? It keeps saying something went wrong, but I have a perfect internet connection.

Dear E McKinney,

Thank you for your query. As mentioned in the previous response, the feature is being retired as of January 1, 2025, and this process is being rolled out gradually to all users. Once the retirement process is complete, the feature will no longer function for any users.

I understand that this change might affect your workflow, and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for your understanding. Your cooperation and contributions are greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Nahid Sultan

Dear JC Craig,

Good day to you!

I hope you are doing well. Thanks for reaching out to our Microsoft Community Forum. We will be happy to help you.

I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing issues with the Microsoft Word Researcher function. Based on your description, I have tested it on my end and encountered the same result as you.

Upon further investigation and referencing Microsoft’s official article, I’d like to share some important information with you. Starting January 1, 2025, Microsoft has officially retired the Researcher function in Word. Unfortunately, this means the feature is no longer available or supported.

For more details, you can refer to the official documentation here: Research your paper easily within Word - Microsoft Support.

However, as community forum moderators, we have limited resources and cannot modify any product features. Microsoft has a dedicated product team that continuously works on enhancing its services based on user feedback. If you need this feature with Word, I recommend you send feedback to the Microsoft. Since it's related Microsoft 365 product services and features option under product design, I believe that the related product team can develop some convenient configuration based on customer requests.

In this situation, I ask that you send your voice directly to the Word product development team so that they can learn about how this feature change caused an inefficient experience for users who rely on simplified data collection and populated analysis.

Therefore, Microsoft recommend submitting feedbackby going in Word · Community

I do apologize for any inconvenience.

Thank you for your understanding. Your cooperation and contributions are greatly appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Nahid Sultan

Why on earth would they retire such a useful feature. Everyone in my class uses it, or should I say used.