While true, there is a setting for good kerning which is disabled by default for backwards compatibility reasons[1]. It's just so well hidden that I'm fairly certain that I'm one of maybe dozens of humans on the face of the planet using it.[2]
1. Go to the Styles ribbon control area and right-click the Normal style.
2. Select the Modify menu item.
3. Click the Format button in the bottom left.
4. Select the Font menu item.
5. Select the Advanced tab.
6. Tick the checkbox labelled "Kerning for fonts". Set the size to something small like "6 Points or above".
7. While you're here, turn on Ligatures. "Standard Only" is fine.
If the above doesn't make you breathe into a paper bag in a panic[3], also consider turning justification on so that we can use 5 GHz multi-core CPUs to finally catch up to the fancy paragraph layout algorithms introduced by this young chap called Gutenberg.[4] Any day now, Microsoft Word will catch up to the first moveable type printer ever made. Any day now...
[1] Backwards compatibility is not a good reason for new documents to use the 1990s defaults, but Microsoft doesn't care about your silly common sense and "logic", okay?
[2] There's dozens of us achieving good typography in Word, I tell you! Dozens!
[3] Some coworkers literally had a panic attack and made me revert the settings because they're "unauthorised" and not the defaults. I wish I was kidding.
[4] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Gutenber...