ByLizette Chapman

In its continuing quest to change the way people work–and  vanquish Microsoft Office in the process–Evernote Corp. announced new features to move the productivity app closer to becoming your synthetic brain.

The 20 or so announcements, made Thursday at Evernote’s annual conference in San Francisco, comes as the seven-year-old startup surpasses 100 million users world-wide.

The software has paid and free versions that can store and organize text, voice, pictures and other items in the cloud and then makes them searchable and shareable from any device.

In what is Evernote’s first major pass at anticipatory computing, it announced its “context" feature would now surface and present relevant external content.

The feature is supported by a number of partnerships, including with Dow Jones & Co.–the publisher of The Wall Street Journal–TechCrunch, FastCompany, PandoDaily and LinkedIn.

The feature presents content that could be helpful to users before they anticipate needing it. For example, if a user is writing about expanding operations in China, related articles and research from The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones-owned Factiva could be presented along the bottom of the screen.

“People are not just reading The Wall Street Journal to be informed. It’s so they can bring it into the workplace," said Mr. Libin, referring to both physical and digital workplaces.

Evernotes also introduced a “chat" feature which allows users to have conversations within the virtual workplace without ever leaving the app.

Along with a handful of other technology updates, the Redwood City, Calif.-based startup announced its market for physical goods would continue to grow. The market, which sells scanners, paper planners, messenger bags and other office and productivity items, was met with  skepticism when Evernote introduced it last year.

Mr. Libin said the marketplace was an important step for the company as it looks to integrate with wearables in addition to the arrangements it now has on the Pebble, Galaxy Gear, Sony SmartWatch and Google Glass.

“With where things are going with wearable devices and smartwatches, the people that don’t understand the physical world won’t succeed," Mr. Libin said.

The market generated $12 million in revenue during the first 12 months of operation.

Based in Redwood City, Calif., and backed with more than $250 million in venture funding, Evernote has said it is considering going public in a few years.

Write to Lizette Chapman at lizette.chapman@wsj.com. Follow her on Twitter at @zettewil