Last year, I reported on a controversial tracking feature in Microsoft's video conferencing tool, Microsoft Teams. Several reports suggested that the feature would act as a kind of lapdog for your boss, automatically reporting your exact live location when connected to your company's Wi-Fi.

However, the software giant cleared the controversy around the feature, detailing how it's supposed to work. "The feature is designed to facilitate collaboration, not compliance or oversight," Microsoft clarified.

As you might have picked up, Microsoft has delayed the rollout of the feature multiple times, from mid March 2026 to April 2026. However, it has now officially shipped to general availability in Microsoft Teams. It's also worth noting that it is expected to ship to broad availability for Microsoft Places later this year.

I noticed that Microsoft changed the name of the feature from Automatic Update of work location to workplace check-in via Wi-Fi. I digress, but if Microsoft's track record is anything to go by, naming features and products has never been its strongest suit.

In a new blog post, Microsoft detailed that the feature is "designed to help employees coordinate in-person work by keeping their workplace location up to date when they’re in the office."

Microsoft says the experience is similar to the existing workplace check-in via peripherals. As such, you can keep your workplace location updated by plugging into a configured peripheral like a display or a desk dock. "Organizations enable and configure this feature in their tenant, and individual users control whether and how it is used," Microsoft added.

How will the feature work exactly? "When an employee is in the office and connects their laptop to a configured corporate network, workplace check-in can update their work location for the day, only when enabled by the organization and the individual user," Microsoft explained. "This reduces the need to manually update location while keeping employees in control."

Microsoft says the feature is a new way to help users understand their counterparts' availability at work. "Workplace check-in helps keep the employee’s workplan up to date and includes the ability to check the employee into an existing desk reservation," the company added. "When schedules shift or someone decides to come into the office, employees who choose to use it can have their work location updated without needing to manually adjust their status each time."

• Employees remain in control. Workplace check-in via Wi‑Fi does not replace a user’s choice to share their workplace location, and individuals can configure their setting at any time.
• It does not retain or track information about employee movement or location over time. Workplace location is a current, in-the-moment signal and is not stored as historical data.
• It applies only to workplace contexts. The signal is generated when a device connects to configured corporate office networks through the Teams client and does not extend beyond those environments. Otherwise, if not connected to a configured network in a workplace location, your location will be shown as “Remote”.

It's worth noting that the workplace check-in feature is designed with both organizational controls and individual choice in mind. "Individuals remain in control of whether the feature works on their device," Microsoft added. "If required location settings are turned off, workplace check-in via Wi-Fi will not automatically activate regardless of organizational configuration."

As such, organizations will decide whether to enable the capability for their tenant. What's more, they can decide whether the end-user experience is opt-in or opt-out. You can also update your settings and manually set or override your work location at any time.

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If you're using Microsoft's Teams app on Apple's Mac devices, specifically those running macOS versions 14 (Sonoma), 15 (Sequoia), and 26 (Tahoe) under the hood, then there's a chance you might have encountered annoying non-dismissible location prompts asking permission to use your location for things like GPS and Wi-Fi.

Microsoft recently acknowledged the issue, attributing it to a recent macOS security update that prevents the operating system from retaining a user’s location permission settings (via Bleeping Computer). The issue seems to affect a small number of Mac users with location access enabled in Teams' settings.

"I have been getting this message on macOS since May 14, 2026. At first, it would go away after the first click of 'Don't Allow,'" a user lamented on the r/MicrosoftTeams subreddit. "Today, I have clicked 'Don't Allow' at least twenty times in a row, and the dialog keeps coming right back. I checked for a Microsoft Teams update, but there isn't one."

Microsoft has indicated that it is working closely with Apple to resolve the issue. "In parallel, we're investigating a potential fix within Teams to mitigate the repeated prompts," Microsoft added.

In the interim, Microsoft has provided a temporary workaround for the issue, urging impacted users to manually enable their location access for Teams with their device's settings app.

​Microsoft added that the issue affects only certain Microsoft Teams users on Mac who have enabled location access in their Teams settings. You'll need to navigate through System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, then toggle "Microsoft Teams" and "Microsoft Teams ModuleHost" on and off, before setting them back to your preferred configuration.

I'll keep a close eye on this issue and update this article as soon as an update is available.

Have you experienced this issue when using Microsoft Teams? Let me know in the comments.

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Microsoft Teams supports real-time collaboration and communication with its messaging and video conferencing features for meetings, file and app sharing, and more. Microsoft usually does a great job at keeping the platform up-to-date with sophisticated features designed to make communication seamless.

However, it's hard to ignore the users lodging complaints about the app's presence feature. For context, it's designed to let other people in your organization know your availability: Available, Busy, In a meeting, In a call, Do not disturb, Be right back, Away, and Offline.

Over the past few days, users have complained about how Teams' presence works, with some claiming that the status indicator will change from green to yellow after barely a few minutes of inactivity. Green means you're available for work, while yellow means you're away.

As a result, you need to go back and forth to the platform to avoid instances where it mistakenly marks your availability at your workplace as Away. Otherwise, a more permanent Out of Office status can automatically be set if you enable automatic replies: "If the user is using Teams during these periods of time, the user's presence is shown alongside the Out of Office indicator," Microsoft added.

Technically, this shouldn't be a big deal as long as you're still working. These kinds of collaboration tools are often susceptible to downtimes anyway, which can impact productivity significantly.

This opens up another discussion about an overreliance by organizations on collaboration tools, but that's a story for another day.

A quick look at the r/remotework subreddit on Reddit reveals that some bosses have seemingly turned into the Teams Status Police, constantly checking employees' availability.

My boss is obsessed with Teams status instead of actual work from r/remotework

"Microsoft Teams is the worst way to track someone! It changes your status to Away after just 5 minutes of no mouse movement, even if you are deep in work," another user lamented. "This hurts focus for millions of remote workers every day."

"Look away from your laptop for 1 second and MS Teams will say u left the country," another user joked.

"Teams sees you step away for water and immediately files a missing persons report," the jokes keep writing themselves. "Two minutes is insane… like sorry I blinked, and suddenly I’m “away”?" another user complained. "At that point, it’s not a status indicator, it’s a surveillance tool with trust issues."

I've reached out to Microsoft for a comment about the topic, and I'll update this post once more information is available. Elsewhere, Teams was on the spot again, specifically about its "Automatic Update of work location" feature, which was misconstrued as a micromanagement and employee surveillance tool.

However, Microsoft dismissed the claims, revealing that the tool is designed to foster collaboration. "Work location is an extension of the online-presence signal in Microsoft Teams and of the working hours control in the Microsoft 365 calendar," Microsoft clarified. "By bringing together working hours, work location, and online presence, users can more easily find out where their coworkers are working from in addition to whether they're available to connect."

More recently, Salesforce and Slack filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing the company of anticompetitive practices over bundling Teams with its Office suite.

Have you had a similar experience with Teams' status indicator? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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On April 23, Salesforce and Slack filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in London’s High Court, accusing the company of anticompetitive practices related to its Microsoft Teams app.

Speaking to Reuters, a Salesforce spokesperson indicated that "Microsoft's practices harmed ⁠competition, using tying and bundling of Teams to ​limit customer choice."

Per Salesforce's lawsuit, Microsoft bundling Teams with its Office suite is described as a calculated move designed to limit customer choice and restrict fair competition in the workplace collaboration market.

A Microsoft spokesperson dismissed Salesforce's claims, further indicating that the antitrust case against it lacked merit:

"Salesforce’s complaint lacks merit, and we’ll make our case before the Court in due course. Slack's lackluster growth, compared to Zoom and Teams, was based on inferior capabilities when COVID-19 hit in ​2020, and had nothing to do with Microsoft." (via Salesforce Ben)

This isn’t the first time Salesforce has raised concerns about Microsoft’s business practices. Back in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of abusing its market dominance by bundling Teams with its Office suite to stifle competition.

The complain further alleged that millions were forced to install Microsoft Teams without the ability to remove it. However, Microsoft dismissed the allegations, arguing that Slack’s struggles originated from its lack of integrated video‑conferencing features rather than any anticompetitive behavior.

But Microsoft caved to antitrust regulatory pressure, making some changes...

In 2025, Microsoft unbundled Teams from Office 365 in an attempt to dodge EU antitrust fines. For context, the European Commission launched a formal investigation into Microsoft for bundling Teams with Office 365 in 2023.

Microsoft made several commitments to the European Commission, including drastic changes in pricing for its core services. For context, it committed to offering Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teams at a lower cost, at around $2.20 (€2) less per user each month. As such, it started offering Teams as a standalone service for about $5.50 (€5) per user per month.

The tech giant also committed to improving how Teams works with competing platforms, making it easier for rival apps to integrate with Teams and other Microsoft services.

This is a developing story. I'll keep tabs on it as it unfolds and equally keep updated as new information becomes available.

Elsewhere, Microsoft is also facing a separate class‑action lawsuit, alleging that it set wholesale prices for Windows Server software higher on rival cloud platforms than on its own Azure service.

Do you think Microsoft is engaging in anticompetitive business practices by bundling Teams with its Office suite? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Salesforce and Slack just filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over anticompetitive business practices, specifically bundling Teams with Office. However, Microsoft dismissed the antitrust claims, citing that Slack's "lackluster growth" is centered on a lack of video-conferencing support, further indicating that it has nothing to do with Microsoft.

And now, Microsoft appears to be using a clever new way to get Teams users to subscribe to the long-established Teams Premium plan. It's an add-on license that allows organizations with Microsoft 365 subscriptions to enhance their user experience on the platform with extra features, including more personalized and intelligent meetings, enhanced protection, and more.

Now, Microsoft has integrated a prompt to buy Teams Premium in the app's title bar. For context, the Teams title bar, which features the three-dot menu where you'd ordinarily access settings like pinning, feedback, and even zoom level, now includes a new option to unlock Teams Premium (via Neowin).

The title bar usually goes unnoticed, but Microsoft’s new “Unlock Premium” banner beside the three‑dot menu has made it far more conspicuous, sparking controversy and backlash over the company’s design choices. According to Neowin, clicking on the option triggers a pop‑up showcasing its benefits. Users are also offered a 60‑day trial that doesn’t require a credit card.

Users have strongly expressed their thoughts about the recent change, saying "STOP ALL POP UPS AND DISTRACTIONS." Others have implied that, "This is just bad UX that leads to mistrust. Most importantly, this advertisement makes settings very hard to discover - who would think to click "unlock premium" if they want to change notification settings?"

Many have expressed their reservations about the change because it's often not within their purview within a business environment to make the change and unlock Teams Premium. Instead, it requires management or IT privileges to enable the add-on license. According to one frustrated user:

"As everyone else has said, the majority of us are not in a position within our organization to authorize a premium subscription, so please remove it from the interface/allow it to be dismissed. It makes it difficult to find teams settings, because the "..." menu is attached to the unlock premium button. Delete delete delete."

Microsoft was already accused by Mozilla of using "dark patterns" and deceptive tactics to force services like Copilot on Windows 11 users. It'll be interesting to see how the company handles more user enterprise-level complaints about this largely unwanted change in Teams.

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Microsoft Teams will soon stop spamming you with emails about meeting recordings expiring. The end of those notifications will be welcome by many, since the pestering can feel a bit redundant. But Microsoft's announcement of the change is a bit strange.

Email notifications from Microsoft Teams about expiring meeting recording are set to stop on June 1, 2026. The company promises that there will be a new setting in place before that cutoff, but I have to wonder why the tech giant has a definitive cutoff for a feature when the replacement is still in the works.

"For those customers that would like to continue receiving email notifications, we will create a new setting and make it available before June 1st," said Microsoft. "This will be a per-tenant setting. We will send another message center post once this setting is available and update our documentation in this discussion and on our support page."

Features often get delayed. Microsoft has postponed the release of its controversial location tracking feature for Teams multiple times.

"Why launch this before the "keep current setting" is in place. Better to launch it all in one package?" asked Markus Johansson in a comment below the post.

Of course, Microsoft could just delay the transition entirely if needed, but it's still a bit strange to announce the change this way.

Why is Microsoft Teams getting rid of these notifications?

Teams users complained about the emails to Microsoft, claiming there are a lot of notifications for information that is not very valuable.

Policies relating to meeting recordings expiring or getting deleted will not be changed when the emails stop being sent out.

🗨️ Will you miss these Teams recording alerts?

I want to hear from the people actually managing these tenants. Will you miss the constant chime of expiration alerts, or do you prefer the pestering over the risk of losing a meeting recording forever? Let me know in the comments!

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A few months ago, we learned that Microsoft Teams was on the verge of shipping a controversial tracking feature to its video conferencing tool. Initially, it seemed as though it would act as a kind of lapdog for your boss, automatically reporting your exact live location when connected to your company's Wi-Fi, for better or worse.

Well, the software giant has now updated how this tracking works in its Microsoft 365 Roadmap, specifically highlighting that it will ship as an opt-in experience, which means it'll be disabled by default. Plus, it clarifies how it works with its prerequisites and limitations, and how organizations can configure it (via PCWorld).

It's a small relief, particularly as the feature sparked backlash among most users, particularly those in our community. Claims that "Microsoft is blurring the lines between coworker collaboration and IT oversight" came alongside others suggesting hyperbole like “There must be a team at Microsoft tasked with making Teams worse.”

I even previously speculated how its exact-location tracking feature aligned closely with Microsoft's return-to-office plan, questioning whether it is merely coincidental or a deliberate effort to maximize workplace efficiency through surveillance and micromanagement.

According to Microsoft:

What's more, Teams users will be able to decide whether they want to share their location with coworkers. Microsoft categorically stated that it won't have access to this data, as locations can only be shared within the users' organization.

The company indicated that the feature supports two distinct location signals:

• Planned work location. User-entered intent. Users can create a recurring work plan in the Outlook or Teams calendar Settings, and one-off plans directly in the calendar grid.
• Actual work location. System‑detected or manually set location, based on check‑in.

So, as Microsoft describes it, "Automatic Update of work location" is a Teams-specific feature that helps its users "spend less time manually updating their status and more time enjoying in‑person collaboration."

Teams will clear a user's location at the end of their working hours, and shouldn't be updated if they connect outside of their designated work hours. Plus, it only works if your buildings are set up for it, using compatible devices and wireless access points to pinpoint particular rooms. If this isn't the case, it'll only show whether a user is working remotely or, indeed, in the office.

🗨️ Teams' tracking isn't for keeping tabs, but for collaboration?

Finally, Microsoft has made it clear that "Automatic Update of work location" is not a tracking tool and will not be used to track employee attendance. "The feature is designed to facilitate collaboration, not compliance or oversight," it says, which certainly seems reasonable.

Importantly, it shouldn't deter users from manually setting or clearing their work location, nor will it give admins access to historical location data. Its rollout has been delayed several times, and it now seems the launch timeline has been pushed from this month to April 2026 again.

What are your thoughts on the new Teams location feature being advertised as a collaboration booster? Let me know in the comments!

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Remember Microsoft Designer? The AI-powered tool has the capability of creating social media posts, invitations, digital postcards, graphics, and more. It shipped to broad availability across web, mobile, and Windows 11 in 2024.

Microsoft integrated Designer into its Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps, including Teams, to facilitate easier generation of images and designs within the user's workflow.

However, the software giant is getting ready pull the plug on the Designer bot and Designer banners in Microsoft Teams as soon as tomorrow (Friday, February 27, 2026), as highlighted in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center under message ID MC1197104 (via Neowin).

The company didn't make this decision out of the blue; it actually began phasing out the feature mid-last month in waves. The rollout of the feature's deprecation should be complete by tomorrow, which means users will no longer be able to install or access the standalone Designer bot in Microsoft Teams.

However, Teams users won't be left high and dry. Microsoft is replacing the Designer bot and Designer banners in Microsoft Teams with Copilot in Teams. This move could be an attempt to get more users to use its virtual AI assistant while simultaneously bolstering productivity by allowing users to get a wide range of tasks done in a unified location. Ultimately, promoting efficiency and effectiveness.

As you may know, Microsoft Designer is powered by Microsoft's AI models and integrations with OpenAI’s DALL·E image generation system, while Copilot runs on OpenAI's latest image generation technology — GPT-4o. It will be interesting to see how the change impacts productivity in Microsoft Teams.

💬 How do you feel about Microsoft replacing Designer with Copilot in Teams?

Over the past few weeks, multiple reports have emerged claiming that virtually no one is using Copilot, though Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated that Copilot AI usage has surged, growing nearly 3x year-over-year.

However, a separate report suggested that only 3.3% of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 users who interact with Copilot Chat actually pay for it despite the company's massive $37.5 billion on its AI-themed efforts in the last quarter.

This could just be another unique play by Microsoft to grow Copilot's user base.

Share your thoughts with me about the change in the comments.

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Last year, I reported on a new Microsoft Teams feature, which raised controversy and privacy concerns among most users. The feature in question automatically updates a user's work location when their device is connected to an office Wi-Fi network — becoming your boss's lapdog, by snitching on your live location.

Shortly after the post became viral, Microsoft quietly changed how the feature works, as highlighted below:

"When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in."

While this might be a long shot, I speculated that the feature incidentally aligns with Microsoft's return-to-office (RTO) plan. For context, Microsoft employees working within 50 miles of a Microsoft office will be expected to work onsite for at least three days per week by the end of this month.

To that end, it's anyone's guess whether Microsoft's controversial Teams feature shipping to broad availability around the same time its RTO plan is taking shape is a mere coincidence or a deliberate attempt to intensify workplace surveillance and micromanagement.

But as you may know, Microsoft has changed the rollout timeline for the controversial Teams feature multiple times. It was initially expected to ship in December 2025, but the software giant changed the rollout to January 2026.

More recently, the company changed the rollout time for the controversial Wi-Fi location tracking feature to mid-March this year. The company didn't provide any details about the reason behind the delayed rollout of the feature.

Windows Central conducted a poll to gauge readers’ opinions on the controversial feature. The results showed that nearly half of the respondents (47%) believe the feature should be removed entirely.

27% of the participants indicated that the feature felt invasive and like surveillance, while just 12% said it's useful for workplace efficiency and safety.

Teams' new Wi-FI location tracking feature feels almost comical, blurring the line between useful and invasive

It's apparent that the new Teams feature is unpopular among most users if the sentiments shared across social media are anything to go by. According to mister_empty_pants on Reddit:

"Microsoft is blurring the lines between coworker collaboration and IT oversight.

IT wise, yes the info was always there. But nobody is asking IT to snitch on you. The entire point of this is that your boss just has to click your name on Teams and now they know where you are. No IT requests, no privacy/ethics concerns, no breach of trust. It's just right there at any time.

What's the next step? The same tracking but for your phone? Microsoft letting your boss look at your screen? Sending your boss daily reports on click rates, words typed, program usage, etc?"

Microsoft Teams is about to become a lapdog for your boss — automatically snitching on your live location when connected to the office wi-fi from r/technology

Interestingly, some users seem unfazed by the change, claiming that most Microsoft products and services already ship with this feature in some shape or form. "Most Microsoft products already meet the criteria for what we'd normally call spyware. What's another drop in a flooded bucket?" a Reddit user indicated.

Some users came up with some interesting ideas on how to bypass the new Teams feature's invasive nature, suggesting using a wired connection at the office instead of Wi-Fi. "I just won’t install teams on my phone then, and when I’m working remote they can’t find me anyway they can just message me and I’ll answer from the laptop," another Reddit user indicated.

On the other hand, some users suggested that Microsoft's efforts were seemingly misplaced and indicated that it should redirect them to fix some UI and UX elements in its Windows operating system. "God forbid they spend time to make the Windows search actually search my computer again," a user indicated.

After reviewing hundreds of comments, it’s clear that users either want the feature scrapped entirely or simply don’t care, since many work remotely. "I swear there must be a team at MS that is just tasked with making Teams worse," a user indicated on Reddit.

💬 How do you feel about Teams’ new Wi‑Fi tracking feature?

Teams’ latest Wi‑Fi tracking tool has raised real questions about privacy, boundaries, and how far workplace software should go. We want to hear your take. Does this cross a line, or is it just another “productivity” feature in a modern office?

Drop your thoughts below and join the discussion!

Join us on Reddit at r/WindowsCentral to share your insights and discuss our latest news, reviews, and more.

Over the past few months, Microsoft has shipped a bunch of new features to Teams, its video conferencing platform, in a bid to enhance its user experience, including the ability to pin the app on top of other windows, ensuring it remains visible while you switch tasks and enhancing multitasking.

Some of the features are also in the pipeline and will be rolled out to users in waves, including the ability to hide the toolbar during meetings. And now, yet another is on its way to the collaboration tool on smartphones.

Teams is about to get a new setting option called Links in Teams, tagged under message ID MC1216263 in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. As the name suggests, the feature will allow users to select their preferred mobile browser when opening non-Office and PDF links in Teams (via Neowin).

This means that users will no longer have to open these files via their OS-level default. Instead, you'll now be able to pick whichever browser you want (well, sort of).

Microsoft has never been one to let an opportunity slip by to present its products and services as the preferred choice. And this case isn't any different. While the new Teams setting option should allow you to use the browser of your choice to open non-Office and PDF links in Teams, Microsoft is seemingly encouraging users to pick Edge, touting Single Sign-On and security features as the main incentives.

The feature is expected to start rolling out to users later this month. Once available, you'll need to select your preferred browser for opening PDF links, which will be presented to you as a pop-up with Microsoft Edge as the first choice, even if it's not installed on your device or your default browser.

"Microsoft also said that it is tracking user satisfaction, Microsoft Edge installation rates, and retention," Neowin noted. Perhaps more interestingly, Microsoft doesn't list other third-party browsers like Google Chrome, Firefox, or even Opera.

When you click on the Microsoft Edge option, and you don't have it installed on your device, you'll get a second prompt, which will direct you to the app store to download the browser.

However, it's worth noting that you can select the default browser and go through the process to use your preferred browser for opening PDF links and others.

Over to you

Teams’ new browser selector promotes Edge as default. Is this a fair move or browser push? Let me know in the comments.

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On February 5, 2026, five Illinois residents filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft in a federal court in Washington. The plaintiffs, including Alex Basich, Kristin Bondlow, and three others, claimed that Microsoft, through its video conferencing platform (Teams), was illegally collecting voice data in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

The class action suit claims that the software giant illegally collected voice data through Teams' real-time transcription feature, which was shipped in 2021 and captures speakers' voices during online meetings and even assesses pitch, tone, and timbre to easily identify who made a certain comment or idea.

While this isn't necessarily illegal, Microsoft's failure to inform users about the collection of their voice data violates BIPA.

According to the plaintiffs, the company should have categorically informed users, elaborated on how the data would be used, and how long it would be stored. Perhaps more interestingly, they claimed that Microsoft would require a user's written consent to collect their voice data.

The plaintiffs seek to represent a class of Microsoft Teams users in Illinois whose biometric data was unlawfully collected through the platform’s transcription feature beginning March 1, 2021.

The class action lawsuit requests either actual damages or statutory damages of $1,000 per negligent violation, whichever is greater. If the court determines that Microsoft willfully or recklessly violated the BIPA, damages could increase to $5,000 per violation.

Elsewhere, an Austrian privacy regulator has ruled that Microsoft illegally set tracking cookies on a school‑issued device used by a child, even though the issue stemmed from how the school deployed Microsoft 365 services rather than anything Microsoft directly controlled.

Should companies face higher penalties when they intentionally misuse biometric data? Let me know in the comments.

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I'd say it's a legitimate excuse to have accidentally pressed the 'Quit' option in an important Teams meeting. At least, it was before multiple users raised concerns about it, and now Microsoft is finally doing something to fix it.

Late last year, the software giant announced its plan to provide an alternative way to quit Microsoft Teams' meetings using the system tray in a bid to prevent accidental hang-ups during calls (via Neowin).

The feature was initially slated to start rolling out by mid-November and hit general availability by the end of November 2025. However, Microsoft changed the timeline by delaying its release to mid-February. As such, the feature may be rolling out to users in waves, nearing broad availability in the next couple of days.

To that end, admins aren't required to take any action as the change will automatically take effect via a new update for the Teams desktop app.

It's worth noting that this isn't the only way to avoid accidentally leaving Teams meetings. There's still a chance you might end up hitting the 'Leave' button while aiming for 'Share' to show your screen with meeting participants, which can still be frustrating, but progress is progress.

In the app's settings, you can click General, then turn on the option to confirm before leaving the meeting.

Elsewhere, Microsoft is set to introduce a new feature in Teams that will allow users to reclaim the screen real estate during meetings by hiding the toolbar. The feature is expected to ship to broad availability in March, giving users more control and allowing them to focus

Microsoft Teams is moving the quit button to stop accidental hang‑ups. What do you think of the change? Let me know in the comments!

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Over the past few months, Microsoft has introduced numerous new features to its video conferencing service, Microsoft Teams — including the ability to pin the app on top of other windows, ensuring it remains visible while you switch tasks and enhancing multitasking.

And as it now seems, the meeting tool is on course to add a long-anticipated feature. According to a spot by Neowin, Microsoft Teams users will soon have the option to hide the entire meeting control toolbar.

According to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, the new feature is expected to ship to general availability in March, allowing you to reclaim screen real estate lost to the control bar during meetings. However, the feature will ship as an opt-in experience, meaning you'll need to navigate through your settings to turn it on.

It's worth noting that this feature doesn't completely scrap the control bar from the meeting interface. You can quickly bring it back to the screen by hovering your mouse over it. Alternatively, you can also press the Tab key.

Elsewhere, Microsoft Teams is expected to get more notable features in the foreseeable future, including branded reactions for organizations in video meetings, encouraging corporate emojis that promote their identity and themes.

Microsoft is also expanding People Skills on the Microsoft 365 profile card on Microsoft Teams, which will allow users to highlight their capabilities, making it easier for managers to identify the right person for a specific job.

Microsoft is expected to add a new feature to Teams that will significantly improve the video conferencing tool's user experience by how it displays people and meetings. The feature tagged 552588 in Microsoft's 365 Roadmap will expand People Skills on the Microsoft 365 profile card on Microsoft Teams.

This way, it will be much easier to know your colleagues' capabilities and skillset based on the information provided in their profile cards (via XDA).

Video conferencing platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom saw widespread adoption during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling organizations to sustain business operations through hybrid and remote work strategies. However, things have seemingly returned to normal, and more organizations are mandating their return-to-office (RTO) plans.

Microsoft has also seemingly joined the fold, indicating that employees tend to work best when collaborating in person. Microsoft employees working within 50 miles of a Microsoft office will be expected to work onsite for at least three days per week by the end of this month. This doesn't necessarily mean that the company is giving up on Teams either.

It certainly seems like a productivity booster and time saver. First, you'll no longer need to jump through hoops trying to identify the right person for the job. And perhaps more importantly, this feature may come in handy when working on a project that you want to keep under wraps.

Of course, this feature will only work effectively and efficiently when everyone plays ball and updates their profile cards with the relevant information. The feature is expected to ship in general availability by March 2026.

Elsewhere, Microsoft Teams will allow organizations to add branded reactions in video meetings, encouraging corporate emojis that promote their identity and themes.

Microsoft is on the verge of expanding Teams' video conferencing, allowing your brand/organization's identity to stand out during video meetings. As highlighted in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, companies will soon be able to add their own branded reactions to their Microsoft Teams workspaces.

Admins will be able to upload custom reaction icons that reflect elements of their company's brand or the theme of a particular event, which will be displayed and available to all meeting participants (via TechRadar Pro).

The feature is still in development, but it is expected to reach broad availability in March 2026.

Elsewhere, Google and Microsoft seem to be playing nice with one another. Google recently announced interoperability between Google Meet and Microsoft Teams for video conferencing devices.

This means that users can now join Microsoft Teams meetings from a Google Meet device, and vice versa. However, it is worth noting that you'll need the "right" hardware to enjoy this new feature, which is already rolling out and will be enabled by default.

And in case you missed it, Microsoft has delayed the launch of its controversial Wi-Fi location-tracking feature in Teams. It sparked concern and backlash from users because it reports your physical location to your boss when you're connected to the office network.

The tech giant is expected to ship the feature by mid-March, though it was initially scheduled for December 2025. Microsoft has addressed some user concerns, indicating that the feature will ship as an opt-in experience disabled by default.

The trouble with remote video conferencing is that there are so many platforms, and if you're comfortable with one, having to use another can be jarring. And who wants that in the workplace?

Google and Microsoft, it seems, are doing a little bit to lower that barrier. Interoperability is now possible between Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, albeit, not for everyone.

With the right hardware setups, though, it is now possible to join a Microsoft Teams meeting from a Google Meet device, and vice versa.

We’re introducing video conferencing device interoperability for Google Meet with Microsoft Teams, which will allow you to:

- Join Microsoft Teams meetings from Chrome OS- based Google Meet hardware devices

- Join Google Meet meetings from Windows-based Microsoft Teams Rooms devices.

Assuming the correct hardware is in play, the feature is rolling out now and will be turned on by default. Both Google and Microsoft have full instructions on how to join meetings from the opposite side.

Most of us won't see any sight of this, at least for now, since it's limited to a very strict set of hardware. But I like the idea, for sure.

In my line of work, I have one platform I have to use on a daily basis, provided by the company. But press briefings more often than not use a different one. I'm hardly a fanboy for video conferencing software, but it's a real pain bouncing between Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, even Discord sometimes.

I'm a big fan of the idea that tech shouldn't get in the way. I'm fairly proficient, and I encounter issues using all these different platforms. In an enterprise environment, businesses will make their own decision on the ecosystem to be in.

Picking up the phone never had a problem with being on a different platform, or network, did it?

Last year, a controversial feature shipping to Microsoft Teams raised concerns and even sparked backlash from users. It's expected to automatically update a user's location when they connect their device to an office Wi-Fi network. As a result, your manager or boss can tell whether you're working from the office.

Shortly after this concept went viral across the web, Microsoft updated how the feature works, further indicating that it's an opt-in experience, which will ship disabled by default.

I speculated that the controversial feature aligns closely with Microsoft's return-to-office plan, prompting questions about whether this is merely coincidental or a deliberate effort to intensify workplace surveillance and micromanagement. The software giant also announced that it had first pushed the feature's rollout to broad availability from December 2025 to January 2026.

As it happens, Microsoft has updated the timeline status again. Now, this Wi-Fi location tracking feature is expected to roll out to broad availability by mid-March this year (via Forbes).

The company hasn't provided an explanation for the delayed rollout of the feature. Perhaps it is using the additional time to address some of the concerns and kinks raised by users.

According to UC Today:

"On paper, auto-setting work location sounds like straightforward UX housekeeping. It’s one less field for users to maintain manually, one less friction point for already overloaded employees. In practice, it sits squarely on a fault line that tech buyers increasingly recognize: hybrid work is governed as much by trust as by tooling."

To that end, the company has emphasized the importance of user controls and guardrails. It's also worth noting that the Wi-Fi location tracking feature won't update the location after working hours. What's more, the work location will also be cleared at the end of the workday.

Do you think the Wi-Fi location tracking feature is a useful addition to Teams? Share your thoughts in the comments and cast your vote!

• Original article follows:

As you may know, Microsoft Teams has been under scrutiny for bundling Teams with Office 365, with rivals like Salesforce's Slack citing anticompetitive business practices. In 2023, the tech giant caved to antitrust pressure, forcing it to unbundle Teams from Office 365. This means users can purchase Office plans without Teams or Teams as a standalone service.

More recently, Microsoft dodged a hefty fine from the European Commission by changing the pricing of Office 365 and Microsoft 365. Both services will now be provided without Teams at a lower cost. For context, you'll have to purchase Teams as a standalone service for approximately $5.50 (€5) per user per month.

As it happens, Microsoft is currently working on a new Teams feature that will use Wi-Fi network connections to pinpoint a user's exact location. For context, Teams will automatically update a user's work location when they connect their device to an office Wi-Fi network (via TechRadar).

The feature is poised to reduce confusion at the workplace, allowing managers and employees to identify each other's location in the office. According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap post announcing the new feature, "when users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in."

To that end, the feature is still in the development phase, but it is expected to ship to broad availability later in December 2025. It's not yet clear what advantage this feature will serve.

It can be a productivity booster, meaning you'll no longer have to manually look for your counterparts at the office or even give them a call; you can easily pinpoint their location via Teams as long as they are connected to the office's Wi-Fi network.

On the other hand, it can also be used to identify who's not working from the office. This news comes after many organizations are rapidly ditching work-from-home and hybrid work arrangements.

In September, Microsoft announced that employees who work within 50 miles of a Microsoft office will be expected to work onsite three days per week by the end of February 2026. The company further indicated that employees work best when collaborating in person.

However, the move has raised concern among employees who claim that the mandatory return to office could be a type of stealth layoffs.

Elsewhere, Microsoft recently shipped a new feature to Microsoft's Copilot Dashboard in Viva Insights called Benchmarks. It is designed to help Copilot identify relevant data, allowing it to track AI adoption rates at your company. This allows management to keep track of how much AI you're using.

In October, I reported on a new and controversial feature shipping to Microsoft Teams, which automatically updates a user's location when they connect their device to an office Wi-Fi network. At the time, Microsoft described the feature, tagged 488800 in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, as follows: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in."

However, the company quietly changed how the feature works, suggesting that it's actually disabled by default, making it more of an opt-in experience. Here's the new description of the feature after Microsoft modified it following user backlash:

MakeUseOf reached out to Microsoft for a comment about the controversial feature and the recent changes to its description, but the company didn't provide any insightful information. “Thank you for reaching out. The M365 Roadmap reflects the latest information; otherwise, Microsoft has nothing to share," Microsoft concluded.

It's apparent that most users weren't too thrilled about the controversial tweak shipping to Teams. "Time to break up with Microsoft, boycott Windows 11 and teams," one our readers lamented. "Tech support guys unite, let it break and free your fellow coworkers from corporate spying tyranny."

As it stands, Microsoft pushed the feature's rollout to broad availability from December 2025 to January 2026. It also categorically indicated that it will be turned off by default.

Teams's location tracking feature lines up with Microsoft's RTO agenda

We're well past the COVID-19 days when virtually every major organization was in panic mode, forcing them to adopt work-from-home (WFH) and hybrid work arrangements to curb the virus from spreading. As a result, there was a surge in demand for collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google's suite of productivity tools to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Microsoft was uniquely positioned to benefit from this as it had bundled Teams with Office 365, making its offer more attractive compared to its rivals. As you may know, the software giant has been in the spotlight for this very reason. Salesforce's Slack cited anticompetitive business practices, which placed Microsoft under the radar of antitrust watchdogs.

The company eventually caved to the mounting pressure, forcing it to unbundle Teams from its Office 365 suite of productivity tools, which allowed it to dodge a hefty fine from the European Commission. Users will now be forced to purchase a standalone Teams license for approximately $5.50 (€5) per user per month. This is regardless of whether they already have an Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscription.

In September, Microsoft announced its return-to-office (RTO) plan, citing that employees tend to work best when collaborating in person. By the end of February 2026, Microsoft employees working within 50 miles of a Microsoft office will be expected to work onsite for at least three days per week.

It’s clear that many people aren’t thrilled about the controversial feature. However, Microsoft has emphasized that it’s an opt-in experience, disabled by default, which makes the situation feel a bit more reassuring.

While this might be a long shot, Microsoft might actually use Teams' location tracking feature to track key performance indicators among its employees and perhaps even ensure that they are adhering to the RTO mandate if their homes fall within a 50-mile radius. We'll see.

FAQ

What is Microsoft Teams' new controversial feature?

In October, reports emerged highlighting Microsoft's plans to ship a new Teams feature that lets your manager know your exact location when connected to the office Wi-Fi.

When will the Teams location tracking feature ship?

The feature was initially set to ship in December 2025, but Microsoft has since made modifications to the announcement, pushing the rollout date to January 2026.

Is the Teams location tracking feature enabled by default?

While the initial announcement was vague about this detail, the modified announcement defines the feature as an opt-in experience, which suggests that it will be turned off by default.

Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s flagship collaboration platform, replacing the likes of Skype. Teams is used by companies and schools to share files, host meetings, and stay connected.

In 2019, Slack raised concerns about Microsoft bundling Teams with Office 365, prompting closer scrutiny from EU regulators. A year later, Slack filed a formal antitrust complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of abusing its market dominance by forcing Teams onto customers and blocking its removal.

Microsoft SEO, Satya Nadella, even spoke out at Slack in 2021, commenting on whether Slack would even exist without Windows.

In 2023, the European Commission launched a formal investigation into Microsoft for bundling Teams with Office 365. Two years later, the case is finally wrapping up, with Microsoft agreeing to a settlement that the Commission is expected to approve, allowing the company to avoid a hefty fine.

What’s in the settlement — and what it means for users

The settlement between Microsoft and the European Commission comes with clear commitments the company must follow.

One of the biggest changes is pricing. Office 365 and Microsoft 365 will now be offered without Teams at a lower cost, around $2.20 (€2) less per user each month. Teams will also be sold on its own for about $5.50 (€5) per user per month.

Microsoft has also committed to improving how Teams works with competing platforms. This should make it easier for rival apps to integrate with Teams and other Microsoft services, which is a clear win for consumers.

Another critical change is data portability. Users in the EU will be able to export and transfer their Teams data to rival platforms, making it easier to switch services and avoid being locked into one ecosystem.

It’s a massive win for user flexibility when selecting their collaboration tools, as you’ll no longer be forced to use Microsoft products.

Why this matters for Big Tech

The European Union is trying to stop Big Tech from using its power to push customers into products they might not need or want. Microsoft bundling Teams with Office 365 was seen as unfair because it made it harder for competitors like Slack and Zoom to compete, especially since Microsoft already has a well-established suite of tools.

This recent case shows the EU is serious about holding Big Tech accountable, while still trying to avoid unnecessary tension with the United States and Donald Trump, who has criticised the EU for being too harsh on Silicon Valley companies.

The deal strikes a middle ground that benefits consumers. The EU gets Microsoft to change its business model without issuing a massive fine, which also helps prevent political flare-ups between the US and Europe.

Other tech giants like Google, Amazon, and Apple are likely watching closely. It’s often better to work with regulators early and make necessary changes, something Apple has already experienced after the EU ruled it had to adopt USB-C.

More choice ahead for businesses and consumers

The European Commission is expected to approve the settlement with Microsoft within the next few weeks, bringing a five-year ordeal to a close. Once approved, Microsoft will have to offer Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teams at a lower price in Europe, with these rules set to last around seven to ten years.

Even if you’re outside the EU, this still matters. Microsoft plans to roll out the same changes globally, not just in Europe. That means more choice for consumers everywhere, alongside long-term commitments to improving how Teams works with competing products.

It’s a big win all around. Slack and Zoom will find it easier to compete, and customers will have more flexibility in choosing the tools that work best for them.

Microsoft Teams is used by hundreds of millions of people each month, and the communication platform regularly receives new features. With Teams extending across several form factors and categories, it can be difficult to keep track of everything that's added.

Luckily, Microsoft rounds up all the new features at the end of each month. In August, Teams gained new capabilities for end users and IT admins.

Now, Teams users can react to a message with multiple emojis, IT admins can upload custom dictionaries to Copilot in Teams, and meeting attendees have more options when making bookings.

Microsoft details all of the new features in a recent blog post. Here is everything that's new plus some details about my favorite additions.

Chat and Collaboration

• Filter for messages with files in contextual search
• Search with SQL-like commands
• Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts
• Saved message view
• Multiple Emoji Reactions

Arguably the most useful addition when it comes to chatting is the ability to filter messages to show only those with attachments. Search results now show "file chiclets" as well, which are small previews of the file type and name of the item.

Support for customizing keyboard shortcuts is also a welcome change. You can now have Teams mimic the shortcuts of other platforms, such as Slack or Zoom, or you can make your own shortcuts.

By far the feature I'm most excited about is support for multiple emoji reactions. You can now react to a single message with multiple emojis. Slack has had this for ages, and we often use it in our chats at Windows Central. Finally, I can react with 💯 and 👍 to the same message in Teams.

Those who have followed my Teams coverage for a while will be familiar with my love for emojis. Teams added the option to customize emojis last year. I was also delighted when Snipping Tool added emojis.

Meetings, Webinars, and Town halls

• Personal meeting templates [Premium]
• Custom dictionaries now available to Copilot in Teams
• Meeting organizers can send messages to attendees in the lobby with lobby chat
• Edit your display name in Teams meetings
• Customize the screen in Teams Town halls through ‘Manage what attendees see’ [Premium]
• Immersive events, experience customization tools and presenter tools [Premium]

Teams now has templates to streamline the process of setting up meetings. You can choose settings for meeting access, Copilot, recording and transcription, and several other parts of a meeting. The feature requires a Teams Premium license.

Support for custom dictionaries allows IT admins to add specific terms used throughout an organization to Copilot in Teams. The AI tool can then produce better transcripts and meeting recaps.

A small but meaningful change to Teams is that the platform now supports editing a display name in meetings, which can be used to show a preferred name or a role. The change is meeting-specific.

Teams Phone

• Microsoft Shifts integration with Teams call queues
• Email notifications for phone number assignments
• Device sign-in support for non-touch models

Admins can now use the Shifts app in Teams to manage call routing to agents within call queues. After some setup, call queues can be configured to reference shift data, pull related shift information, and make sure calls are routed to people on shift.

Workplace: Places and Teams Rooms

• Book desks using maps [Premium]
• Book desks near colleagues [Premium]
• Book desks for partial days and multiple days [Premium]
• Book desks on behalf of others [Premium]
• Configure auto-release for no-show desk reservations
• Enhanced walk-up desk booking experience for users
• Configure new desk modes: reservable, drop-in, assigned, unavailable
• New Places built-in admin role support
• New Places admin dashboard 

Several new options rolled out to Teams related to booking rooms and spaces. Premium users can now book desks using maps, book desks near colleagues, and book desks for part of a day or multiple days. It's also possible to book a desk for someone else.

Admins can now set desks to one of four modes: Reservable, Drop-in, Assigned, and Unavailable.

Fundamentals and Security

• Microsoft Teams: Support Audit logs for Give and Take Control and Screen share

Frontline Worker Solutions

• New SharePoint Agent Integration in Teams Chats and Channels
• Deploy Frontline Teams in Teams Admin Center

SharePoint agents can pull information from a SharePoint library.

As of this month, it's possible to add SharePoint agents to Teams channels. Group chats now support multiple agents — previously only one agent was supported.

Certified for Teams Devices

On top of all of the new Teams features, there are also several new Certified for Teams devices:

• EPOS IMPACT 100 MS Stereo and Mono USB-C+A headsets
• Logitech Rally Board 65 + Tap for Teams Rooms on Android (wired)
• Yealink MeetingBar A50 with Touch Panel CTP25
• Logitech Entry Level MeetUp 2 for Teams Rooms on Windows

Certified for Teams devices meet standards for quality, reliability, and compatibility with Teams. Microsoft considers audio and video quality, device management options, security, and other factors when certifying devices.

Earlier this year, Microsoft confirmed that it was preparing to retire Skype. The messaging and calling app has existed since 2003, but Microsoft acquired the platform 14 years ago.

Today, on May 5, Microsoft is pulling the plug on Skype as it officially retires the app. While speaking to TechCrunch, Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative Apps and platforms, indicated:

“We know this is a big deal for our Skype users, and we’re very grateful for their support of Skype and all the learnings that have factored into Teams over the last seven years. At this point, putting all our focus behind Teams will let us give a simpler message and drive faster innovation.”

As expected, Microsoft has been doubling its efforts on Teams and urging users to transition. Additionally, the company allowed users to export their Skype chats to Teams to make the transition more seamless.

While it remains unclear exactly how many people will be impacted by Skype shutting down, Microsoft's data from 2023 shows that the platform had over 36 million users. In comparison, Microsoft Teams surpassed 320 million active monthly users worldwide around the same time.

This move could be a bid by the tech giant to drive more users to Microsoft Teams and increase its user base. As you may know, Microsoft launched a new app for Teams, which is twice as fast and consumes 50% less disk space than the previous build.

To that end, it's unclear whether users will be eager to transition to Teams, especially in the new era of communication and the vast availability of messaging and video calling platforms like Zoom, WhatsApp, and countless more.

Microsoft Teams gets new features each month. With so many versions of Teams available across different operating systems and types of devices, it can be difficult to keep track of everything that's new. Luckily, Microsoft breaks down all the changes in a monthly roundup.

Some of the features listed below were available to select users starting in March but were not generally available. The list also includes brand-new features, such as enhanced OneDrive navigation within Teams.

Arguably the headline feature from the latest wave of updates is enhanced OneDrive navigation. Now, when you open OneDrive within Teams, the app will jump to the exact spot you left off the last time you used OneDrive.

Here's a rundown of everything new Microsoft listed in its recent Tech Community post:

• Chat and Collaboration
  • Enhanced OneDrive navigation in Teams
  • Custom file download location for Mac
  • Improved Microsoft Lists links in Teams messages
  • Forward messages with app cards
  • Tag Mentions filter in Activity
  • Increased drop zone for chats when uploading files
• Meetings, Webinars, and Town Halls
  • IT administrators can upload multiple themes for branded meetings [Premium]
  • Admins can disable ability to send messages in meeting chat before and after the meeting
  • Information barriers moderated meetings
  • Edit display name in meetings
  • Notification that intelligent recap is ready for calls from chat and ‘Meet now’ meetings
  • Set chat notification preference via meeting RSVP
  • Bi-directional calendar syncing between Google Workspace and Teams
  • DVR support in Town hall
  • Post and reply to questions as an organizer
• Teams Phone
  • Teams Phone extensibility for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center
  • Queues app: barge/whisper/monitor/takeover
  • More seamless migration from on-premises Direct Routing phone numbers to online phone numbers
  • Direct Routing Call Troubleshooting via SIP Ladder
• Workplace: Places and Teams Rooms
  • Book an individual desk by plugging into a peripheral
  • Live transcription and controls on Teams Rooms on Windows
  • Live captions translation in Teams Rooms on Windows
  • Updates to gallery view in Teams Rooms on Windows
  • Occupancy status on Teams panels
• Fundamentals and Security
  • Admins can choose automatic or manual adjustment of meeting sensitivity based on the sensitivity level of shared files in Teams meetings [Premium]
  • Brand impersonation phishing protection for GCC, GCC-H and DoD
  • Background blur, virtual and user uploaded backgrounds the new VDI solution
  • AVD Screen Capture Protection and Microsoft Teams compatibility
  • Cross cloud support for the new optimizations for VDI
  • Manage location sharing in Teams
  • Monitor Teams client updates in Teams admin center
  • Teams client health dashboards in Teams admin center
  • Remote contact management for Teams Phone devices in Teams admin center
• Frontline Worker Solutions
  • Wired headset support to Walkie Talkie on iOS
  • Storyline in Teams
  • Engage in Teams mobile
  • Flexible membership for deploying Teams at scale

DVR in Microsoft Teams town halls

While enhanced OneDrive navigation is the first feature mentioned by Microsoft's Pete Daderko, my favorite addition is Digital Video Recording (DVR) support for town halls.

If you view a town hall on Teams for the web or the desktop app, you can now pause content and then move forward or back to catch up.

Since town halls are often attended live, the ability to pause and skip around is a nice improvement. While this functionality isn’t exclusive to Teams, it’s a welcome upgrade.

Microsoft Teams will soon gain a feature that makes it easier to keep track of messages while sharing your screen. The addition will allow a presenter to view a meeting chat while sharing their screen without showing attendees the chat window.

The feature is expected to start rolling out in May, though that date is subject to change.

Microsoft updated the rollout timeline for the feature recently. The Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive lists the following message from Microsoft:

"Microsoft Teams will soon add a control to the meeting presenter toolbar, allowing presenters to access the meeting chat while sharing a screen. The rollout for Windows and Mac desktops will start mid-May 2025 for Targeted Release and early June 2025 for General Availability. No admin action is required."

This small addition will help meeting hosts stay engaged with attendees without interrupting a presentation. Teams already supports messaging while sharing your screen, but the current setup shows the meeting chat while you have that window open.

Because meeting chat is already visible to attendees, this update is designed to improve usability rather than enhance privacy. The feature allows a shared screen to remain the focus of the meeting.

The updated experience also simplifies the process of jumping into the chat by placing a shortcut in the presenter toolbar.

As illustrated by Microsoft in the image above, the chat window only appears for the presenter. If you look at the lower-right corner of the image, you can see the shared screen without the chat window, just as it appears to other meeting attendees.

The feature should ship to Microsoft Teams desktop clients in the near future, including Windows and macOS.

With Skype on the way out, Microsoft has officially pointed people toward Teams. But by the time Skype support ends in May, Teams will have already lost a feature.

Starting in April 2025, also known as just a few weeks from now, Microsoft Teams will no longer support sending and receiving SMS text messages.

At the moment, the feature allows you to connect an Android device to Microsoft Teams. After setting it up, Teams will show SMS text messages in Chats under the Recent section.

A Microsoft document notes the end of support for linking your Android device to Microsoft Teams.

"Important: Starting April 2025, sending and receiving SMS messages from your Android device will no longer be supported in Teams. To continue using this feature on Windows, please use Phone Link. Learn more here," states the document.

Microsoft did not share the reason this feature is going away. My guess is people preferred to use Phone Link or other alternatives rather than connect Teams to SMS messaging.

How can I send SMS text messages from a PC?

While Teams will soon lose the ability to link to an Android device, people will still be able to send and receive text messages on a Windows PC. They'll just have to use Phone Link instead.

Phone Link has been around for years, though it used to be known as Your Phone. The feature lets you sync text messages, photos, and other content between your phone and your PC.

The exact features you'll have at your fingertips depend on which type of phone you use. For the best experience, you'll need a Samsung Galaxy phone.

Select OnePlus phones also integrate deeply with Phone Link.

Other Android devices still have quite a few options for syncing content between your phone and your PC. Those with an iPhone will have the most limited set of features, but Phone Link still supports making and taking calls and replying to texts.

Back in 2022, our Managing Editor Jez Corden said that Phone Link is the best new Windows feature of the past decade.

If you rely on SMS messaging and phone calls, Phone Link is an excellent tool. If you find yourself firmly in other ecosystems, such as WhatsApp or Telegram, you may not find Phone Link as useful.

Microsoft has proposed a change to Chromium that would improve the calling experience within many of the most popular browsers. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and any other web application that uses the Notifications API would be able to take advantage of the new feature. Microsoft has already implemented a prototype of an explainer on the topic to Chromium.

"We would like to propose an extension to the Notifications API standard for incoming call scenarios to allow the notification action buttons to be customized and also allow the application to play a ringtone," explains Microsoft on GitHub. "This capability would make the incoming call notifications, which may require a faster immediate response, clearly distinguishable from the others to the user and would also contribute to increasing accessibility on the Web."

Microsoft's idea would also make it possible for browsers to prioritize call notifications over other types of notifications.

Web applications can already send a notification for when a call is received, but those notifications are rather limited. They also lack buttons for actions such as answering a call. The new feature proposed by Microsoft would make it possible to add custom buttons to a notification alongside the dismiss button.

Microsoft discussed the benefits of its proposed API extension in a blog post:

• Are visually distinguished from other notifications.
• Have customized buttons, which can be used to answer or reject a call.
• Have a ringtone associated with them.
• And have a higher priority than other notifications, when supported by the platform.

You can view the API in use by using a sample app in Microsoft Edge. Microsoft outlines the steps to do so in its blog post and requests feedback from those who try the feature.

"We’re looking for feedback on this proposal, so if you’re interested in this API and want to help us shape it, please read the explainer, and send us your feedback by opening a new issue on our repository," states Microsoft.

Microsoft Teams has a new calendar experience that brings it in line with Outlook. The new calendar integrates the calendar experience from Outlook into Teams, which means the calendar within Teams has a new look and new features. Delegate access, print support, expanded calendar settings, and support for multiple time zones are just some of the features making the jump from Outlook to Teams.

Microsoft announced the availability of the unified calendar experience in a blog post. The new calendar is an opt-in experience, so organizations will not see any change unless admins choose to enable the unified calendar. It's also possible to switch back to the classic calendar at any point.

The unified calendar experience includes support for Copilot and Places, which means features like managed bookings are now available within the Teams calendar. Workplace presence and Places card are also available within Teams following the calendar update.

The following views are available in the unified Calendar, as outlined by Microsoft.

• Month View: View your calendar by month, a highly requested feature, especially useful for users with sparse calendars.
• Split View: When more than one calendar is selected, you can now split the calendar into two independent views.
• Time Scale: Specify time scales or intervals for the calendar surface
• Saved Views: Save your current view for easy access later
• Weather Display: See the weather for your current location directly in the calendar

Within the new unified calendar, you can customize settings, such as when events start and your location. Printing your calendar and sharing your calendar with people in your organization is also possible following the update.

Here's how to enable the new calendar in Teams:

1. Open Microsoft Temas (desktop).
2. Navigate to the Calendar app within Teams.
3. Click the toggle for "New Calendar" that appears in the upper-right corner of the Teams Calendar app.

Microsoft notes that the new calendar should load within a few seconds, so you may not see the change at the exact moment you enable the feature.

To be honest, it's always been strange to me that Microsoft had such a different calendar experience for Teams. The tech giant has one of the best-known calendar apps and Teams has been around for several years. But Microsoft has revamped Teams several times since the app came out, so it's not a huge surprise to see a new calendar. A unified Teams app shipped last August and Microsoft announced arguably the biggest change in Teams history in October.

Microsoft Teams has been around since 2017 and is used by hundreds of millions of people, but the app still lacks some functionality that seems like it should have shipped on day one. One of those gaps is about to close, since Microsoft started testing the option to customize where notifications appear on your PC recently.

The developers behind Teams are quite active, often adding new features and options within the app. While many features center around AI, Microsoft also rolls out improvements to the interface of Teams quite often. For example, possibly the biggest change in Teams history revamped how teams, chats, and channels are organized within the app.

A blog post from Microsoft outlines the benefits of choosing where notifications appear:

• Greater focus: By positioning notifications in less intrusive areas of the screen, you minimize distractions and better concentrate on tasks.
• Improved productivity: With notifications appearing where they are most visible and least disruptive, you can stay informed without breaking your workflows, thereby boosting overall efficiency.
• Intuitive and flexible interface: You can adjust notification locations to best fit your current workspace, ensuring a seamless, comfortable, and adaptable working environment.

Those all seem to be fair arguments for why the feature is a nice addition to Teams, though I admit I wonder why it took eight years to integrate the option into the app.

The ability to customize where Microsoft Teams notifications appear is available for those on Windows devices who are in Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted Release.

If you have access to the option, here is how to customize where Teams notifications appear:

1. Open Settings within Microsoft Teams.
2. Navigate to Notifications and activity.
3. Navigate to Display.
4. Choose where you want notifications to appear.

What you need to know

• Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and the Microsoft Store are all down right now for many.
• Outage reports started rising around 8 AM ET and rose dramatically by 12 PM ET.
• Microsoft identified the issue that caused the outage and is rolling out a fix, but many can still not access Microsoft services as of 12:40 PM ET.
• Delays caused it to take longer than expected to fix the issue but outage reports have begun to dip.

Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams users were in for a rude awakening to start the week. Those services all top the charts at DownDetector, which indicates service outages by collecting user reports. Outages started earlier today around 8 AM ET but spiked closer to midday.

Some reports of issues occured earlier in the day around 4 AM ET, which is roughly when Microsoft started investigating the issue, but issues appear to have caused more problems starting around 8 AM ET. There's a good chance the spike in outage reports aligned with people signing on for work to start the week.

"We're investigating an issue impacting users attempting to access Exchange Online or functionality within Microsoft Teams calendar," said Microsoft on its official Microsoft 365 Status account on X (formerly Twitter). That comment came at 9:06 AM ET after outage reports started to rise.

Microsoft later mitigated the issue as it identified a fix. The tech giant was able to determine the cause of the outages and is rolling out a fix for the issue. That rollout is gradual, however, as outage reports continue to come in at DownDetector.

Microsoft shared that the patch had reached "approximately 98% of the affeccted environments" as of 11:51 PM ET.

This is an ongoing story, and we will update this piece as more information becomes available.

When will Microsoft 365 be back online?

Microsoft identified the issue causing the outages of Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. The company started rolling a fix out earlier this week but "targeted restarts are progressing slower than anticipated for the majority of affected users," according to Microsoft.

Microsoft faced delays in its recovery efforts but has since gotten services online.

The latest from Microsoft is that all Microsoft 365 services are up and running as normal.

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What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will soon support several new translation features.
• Meeting transcription within Teams will soon support 51 spoken languages and 31 translation languages.
• Intelligent meeting recaps will appear as well after being generated automatically into someone's translation language of choice.
• Microsoft also shared that Teams will be able to use Copilot to generate summaries of a file shared within a chat.

Microsoft Ignite 2024 kicked off today online, and it started with a flurry of announcements. A destkop running Windows 11 by streaming, improved Windows 11 Search powered by AI, and new IT admin tools that help save bricked PCs without requiring physical access made early headlines, but arguably the most important announcements from the conference center around Microsoft Teams. Hundreds of millions of people use the communication platform, so any major update to Teams affects a massive swath of people. That's especially the case given the global focus of upcoming updates to Teams.

Meeting transcription will soon support 51 spoken languages and 31 translation languages, greatly expanding the accessibility of meetings held on Teams. Teams will transcribe a meeting spoken in any of the supported languages without you having to select a specific language for the app to listen for.

In addition to meeting transcription working with multilingual meetings, live translated captions and live translated transcripts will work with multilingual meetings.

Microsoft also shared news about intelligent meeting recap translation at Ignite 2024. A new feature that will launch in 2025 for Teams desktop, web, and mobile will create recaps of meetings generated automatically in the translation language a user selects. It will also be possible to change the translation language of an intelligent meeting recap after the fact.

Copilot in Teams has a new feature on the way also. The feature will be able to analyze visual content that's shared onscreen through PowerPoint to the web. The tool will then be able to answer questions based on that content. Microsoft summarized that upcoming feature and its other announcements from Ignite in a blog post.

Most people will have to wait a bit longer to use the new Copilot in Teams features since they will launch in public preview in early 2025.

Finally, Microsoft Teams will integrate with Storyline, which is a feature that provides a singular location for people across an organization to share stories, videos, text, and other posts. Microsoft's Viva Engage already had a Storyline feature, but the concept is now on the way to Teams and will enter preview early next year.

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What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will gain support for scheduling messages within channels in the near future.
• Teams already supports scheduling messages, but the functionality is limited to chats at this time.
• The Microsoft 365 Roadmap lists scheduling messages within channels as set to ship in January 2025, but that date is subject to change.

Microsoft Teams on Windows and macOS will soon bring a handy feature from chats into channels. Right now, you can schedule messages within Teams but the functionality is limited to chats within the communication app. In the near future, that option is set to make its way to channels as well.

Microsoft detailed its plans for Teams in its Microsoft 365 Roadmap. An entry, which was first spotted by XDA, lists a planned rollout of January 2025 for message scheduling within channels. Like any feature listed on that roadmap, the date for message scheduling rolling out could change.

"Like in chat, you can now schedule send messages in channels," says the roadmap entry. "You can optimize the timing of your messages based on the recipient's work hours, out-of-office time, etc, and ensuring your messages are delivered at the most suitable time."

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Big changes to Microsoft Teams

While the addition of message scheduling to channels will be nice, it's a small change in comparison to what's on the way to Teams. Late last month, arguably the biggest change in Teams history was unveiled when Microsoft unveiled a revamp to the communication platform. Soon, teams will no longer have a dedicated section within Teams. Instead, all text-based communication will live within the chats section of the app.

Teams will let you customize its interface during onboarding and have a favorites section. That section will show pinned chats and channels from the current version of Teams by default, though you'll be able to tweak it.

Based on the videos and blog posts Microsoft has shared about the revamped Teams experience, the update looks like an improvement, but it is a big change. I'm curious to see how it will be received by everyday users of the app.

The revamped experience is in preview testing starting this month and should ship to everyone in the near future.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will soon support setting the skin tone of emojis within the app.
• Your skin tone of choice will then extend across emojis and reactions and sync across clients.
• Skin tone customization is now in testing among those in Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release.
• The feature is supported on Teams clients on Windows, macOS, Web, Android, and iOS.

Microsoft Teams has a new feature in the works that makes the app more inclusive. Now in testing, skin tone customization allows you to set the skin tone of reactions and emojis within Teams. The setting makes reactions more personal and reflective of those communicating within the app. Microsoft announced the feature this week and is now testing in among users in Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release.

It's already possible to send emojis with a selected skin tone on most operating systems. For example, within the people section of the emoji panel on Windows 11, you can select your skin tone of choice. But the addition of skin tone customization to Teams syncs the setting across clients, which saves a few steps.

"Customizing your skin tone in emojis and reactions enables you to better represent your physical appearance and express yourself more authentically in virtual meetings and conversations," said Microsoft when announcing the feature. "It contributes to a more inclusive, personalized, and engaging experience."

Altering skin tone settings changes the default for all emojis and reactions, but you can also change the skin tone of a specific emoji or reaction within Teams. To do so, right-click an emoji or reaction if you're on Teams for Windows, macOS, or the web or long-press an emoji or reaction on Teams for Android or iOS.

Here's how to change skin tone settings within Teams, as listed by Microsoft:

1. To change skin tone settings, select Settings and more (…) > Settings >Appearance and accessibility, and then select the option you want under Skin tone. Applies to Windows, Mac, Web, Android and iOS.
2. Or set your skin tone directly in the emoji and reaction menus. Just hover over a message in a chat or select the Emoji, GIFs and Stickers button in the message box, select the Customize button next to the Search box, choose the skin tone you want, and then save. Applies to Windows, Mac, and Web

Big changes for Teams

Skin tone customization for emojis is a welcome change to Teams, but it's not the only new feature in the works. Microsoft just announced arguably the biggest change in Teams history recently. The app will revamp how chats, channels, and teams are organized. The new chat and channels experience will bring all text-based communication under a single section that you can then customize.

The new chats and channels experience will enter public preview testing in November and ship to iOS, Android, and the various desktop versions of Teams in the near future.

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What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will see a major revamp in the near future that changes how chats, channels, and teams are organized within the app.
• Teams will no longer have a dedication teams section, instead shifting all text-based communication to the chats section of the app.
• The new experience will enter public preview this November and be available on the iOS, Android, and desktop versions of Teams.

Microsoft Teams has a massive change on the way that alters chatting within the app. The new chat and channels experience removes the dedicated "teams" section of the app and brings chats, teams, and channels under one header. Now, all of your text-based communication will live within the "chats" section of Teams.

Before you get too worried, Microsoft is not removing the concept of teams within Teams, even though the tech giant will remove the Teams section of the app when the new experience rolls out in public preview in November. That public preview will be available on iOS, Android, and the desktop version of Teams.

The redesigned Microsoft Teams will have an onboarding experience that helps you customize the app's interface. The app will feature custom sections that can be filled with chats, channels, meetings, and AI agents. There will also be a favorites section by default, which will show pinned chats and channels from the current version of Teams.

Microsoft outlined the new experience and plans for rollout in a blog post. A Tech Community post dives into further details about the new experience.

Granular controls will let you customize if chats and channels appear separately or together. The revamped Teams also has an "@mentions" view that collects all mentions of you from across the app. You can then action any items flagged up to you quickly.

Tom Arbuthnot, who provides insight regarding Microsoft 365 at Empowering.cloud, said that this could be "possibly the biggest change in Microsoft Teams history." I agree with that assessment and echo Arbuthnot's thoughts that the new experience will see some pushback.

Microsoft Teams without teams?

While teams will still exist in the new Microsoft Teams, they will not live in their own section of the app. That's a drastic change, and I'm not sure it will be well-received by everyone. It's not that the new experience is bad. Personally, I prefer the customizable design that can gather different elements together, but it is very different than what people have gotten used to.

Change is a tricky thing, even if for the better. I know several people who hated Windows 8 but then got used to the operating system. After years of reluctantly learning the tile-focused interface of Windows 8, those same people were hesitant to upgrade to Windows 10. Even though they liked several of the design elements of Windows 10 more and had previously disliked Windows 8, they had grown accustomed to it. Sometimes, it isn't about what's best, it's about what people are comfortable with, even if that comfort came grudingly.

Microsoft Teams is not Windows 8 (thankfully), but I think the same principle applies. Many have learned to use Teams, and in some cases have been forced to use it as organizations chose to use Teams over Slack or other communication platforms. Now, those people are used to the Teams interface and have to learn a new one once again.

For those who prefer to keep things separate, Teams will support keeping chats and channels apart from each other. That won't be exactly the same as the current layout of Teams, but it will be nice to have the option. Setting Teams to keep chats and channels separate will be possible during the onboarding process or later.

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What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will soon have bidirectional support for translated languages.
• The feature allows interpreters to switch the translation direction between different languages with the push of a button.
• To use the feature right now, you have to be a member of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release on Windows or macOS.

Microsoft Teams supports live language interpretation within meetings, which allows professional interpreters to be added to non-encrypted meetings. The feature is used by millions of people to facilitate communication across languages, according to Microsoft. Soon, interpreters will be able to swap the direction of language translation with a single click.

The new feature, which is in testing among preview users, is called bidirectional support for language interpretation. With it, an interpreter can change which language they're translating speech into by tapping or clicking an indicator on their screen. As a result, meetings do not need to have a second interpreter or an additional device to support translation back and forth between two languages.

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To use the feature, you need to be a member of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release. Bidirectional support for language interpretation is available on both Windows and macOS. Testing the feature with other users does not require everyone to sign up to be a preview member.

Microsoft first rolled out interpretation support to Teams in 2022. While many apps, including Teams, support automated translation in various formats, those features are not as accurate as a professional interpreter.

Microsoft outlined how the feature works in its Tech Community post:

1. When an interpreter joins a Teams meeting for which they are providing translation services, a notification will appear calling out the language translation indicator at the bottom of their screen.
2. The language that the interpreter is currently translating into (the one attendees hear) is highlighted in the indicator at the bottom of the Teams window.
3. The interpreter can select the other button to switch the language they are translating into. They can continue switching back and forth during the meeting as needed.

What you need to know

• A new unified Microsoft Teams app launched today for Windows 11, Windows 10, and Mac.
• The app supports personal, work, and education accounts that you can switch between easily.
• Previously, using Teams for personal and professional or education use required two separate applications.

After months of testing a unified Microsoft Teams app is finally available. The launch of the new app ends a confusing setup for Teams on PC that required juggling multiple applications if you relied on the communication service for both personal and professional use. The new app supports switching between different account types, including personal, professional, and education.

The new unified Teams app is available for Windows 11, Windows 10, and macOS. You can choose your preferred Teams account for joining meetings or sign in as a guest within the app. You can also select any of your accounts when joining a meeting, even if they aren't your preferred account.

Microsoft unveiled the unified Teams app in March of this year. The app is a welcome change to a strange setup for a communication platform used by hundreds of millions of people. At one point, Windows 11 had a chat experience integrated with the taskbar that was powered by the person version of Teams. Microsoft later got rid of the chat experience, leaving two entirely separate Teams apps available, one for person use and one for professional or educational use.

Finding the correct app was more confusing than it should have been, since searching for Teams could show either version. One way to get around this was to memorize the respective icons of the different Teams, but that shouldn't be required to open the right version of Teams.

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The unified Teams app will come preinstalled with Windows 11 2024 Update (version 24H2), though you don't have to wait to get the app. If you have Microsoft Teams installed on your PC, the app will update to the new version automatically. The new Teams is also available through Microsoft's website.

An article I posted recently includes a poll about which communication apps you use in 2024. Votes are still coming in, so I won't share specific figures yet, but Microsoft Teams is off to a strong start. The poll lets you pick all of the apps you use from a list and then rank them, giving a more compressive view measure of which apps our readers use.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will soon let you rename the General channel within a team.
• Every team within the app has a General channel that cannot be archived or deleted.
• Despite launching seven years ago, Teams has lacked the option to rename the General channel.
• The new option is available now for members of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release on the new Teams for Windows or macOS.

Severn years after launch, Microsoft Teams will soon gain the option to rename the General channel within a team. Every team within Microsoft Teams has a General channel by default, but up until now, you have not been able to rename that channel. Microsoft is in the final stages of testing the ability to rename the General channel, and the functionality can be tried by members of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release on the new Teams for Windows or macOS.

The General channel in a team cannot be archived or deleted, and every member of a team is placed within that channel, making it a bit odd that Teams lacks the option to rename the channel. But that gap is about to be filled.

"We’ve heard from users that they wanted the option to retitle this channel to something more meaningful," said Microsoft. "So, we made it happen! The General channel can now be renamed by the team’s owners. It will then show up in alphabetical order like other channels in the teams and channels lists for all members."

Team owners can rename the General channel through the "More options" button for that channel or through the "Manage channel" settings page. Interestingly, if you change the name to something else, you won't be able to change the name back to "General" in the future.

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A strange omission

Microsoft Teams launched in 2017. The communication platform has come a long way since then and currently has hundreds of millions of users. I know that Teams gets a lot of hate, and some of that is justified, but overall, it is an effective tool for keeping in touch with a team and getting work done. 

In the early days of Microsoft Teams, some missing features were either acceptable or at least expected, depending on your perspective. The platform was put on a global stage during the pandemic and expected to meet growing demands rapidly. Teams was only a few years old when millions of people had to shift to working from home and remote learning.

Since those early days, Microsoft has come out with a new version of Teams, added countless features, and refined the general Teams experience. The active development of Teams makes it a bit perplexing when a simple feature is missing, such as the ability to change the name of the general channel within a Team. I suppose there are more pressing areas that require attention, such as debundling Teams from Office 365, but it seems like this gap could have been filled a while ago.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams has a new expanded gallery view when using the minimized meeting window.
• The minimized meeting window is a small window that stays at the top of Microsoft Teams when you need to navigate to other parts of the app.
• The new features are available for Windows and macOS users who are members of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release.

Microsoft wants to make it a bit easier to stay on top of your Teams meetings. Microsoft 365 Insiders can test out an enhanced presenter and attendee experience that features an expanded gallery view within Teams. The expanded gallery view shows up to four meeting participants and a Me Video tile, though the default view is still to show just a one-tile active speaker view.

When you're in a Teams meeting, you can keep a minimized meeting window on your screen while you navigate to other parts of the app. This window sits at the top of the Teams app and shows meeting participants, reactions, raised hands, and a preview of your own video. Now, with expanded gallery view, you can see more within the minimized meeting window.

Here are some of the things you can do with the expanded gallery view, as listed by Microsoft:

• See more participants in the current meeting (up to 4). 
• Be aware of raised hands from participants and be able to lower them. 
• See reactions from participants. 
• Directly mute noisy participants. 
• See a preview of your own video. 
• Receive relevant in-meeting notifications. 
• Access relevant controls such as toggle AV modalities. 
• Leave the meeting from the call monitor. 

When you have the minimized meeting window on your screen, you can use the view switcher and select "Show participant gallery" to open the expanded view. Presenters will see the expanded gallery view by default but can select to only show the active presenter or choose between other options if they'd like.

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To use the new view options within Teams, you need to be a member of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release. The new features are available for Teams on Windows and macOS.

What you need to know

• Microsoft 365 Insiders can now upload and use custom emojis within Microsoft Teams.
• Each tenant can upload up to 5,000 custom emojis, adding a personalized layer of communication.
• Custom emojis are already available on competing platforms, such as Slack, so Teams is playing a bit of catch up with the feature.

Microsoft Teams will soon support a new way to express yourself. Custom emojis are now in testing among Microsoft 365 Insiders and will ship to everyone in the near future. Custom emojis have been in the works for a while and were formally announced at Build 2024. Now, Insiders can upload and use custom emojis.

Custom emojis are a small touch that can make a business channel feel more personal. We use Slack at Windows Central, and the platform already supports custom emojis. There are several inside jokes and playful emojis in our channels. Soon, Teams will have similar functionality.

To use custom emojis at the moment, you have to be a member of Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Target release. The feature is also limited to Teams on Windows, Mac, or the web. Microsoft noted in its blog post that custom emojis cannot be uploaded on Android devices at this time, but it's safe to assume Android support is on the way.

If you have access to the feature, you can follow these steps outlined by Microsoft to access and upload custom emojis:

How to access custom emojis in Microsoft Teams

1. Open a Teams chat or channel and in the chat box, select the Emoji icon ().
2. At the top of the window, select the Emoji menu option.
3. In the bottom right area of the window, select the Emoji icon with the dotted line circle around it (). This will bring up the Custom section of the emojis library. Select the one you want from these options to insert it into your chat.
4. To see who created the emoji, or to delete it (if you have permissions to do so), right-click on it.

How to upload custom emojis in Microsoft Teams

1. If you have permissions to add emojis for your organization, in the Custom section of the Emojis library (shown above), select the + icon. A File Explorer window will open to allow you to select a new image or GIF file to use as a custom emoji. (You can upload a JPEG, PNG, or GIF file; smaller images with square dimensions work best. NOTE: Custom emojis and reactions cannot currently be uploaded on Android.)
2. To assign a name to your new custom emoji, type it in the Name box and select Add emoji.
3. When your upload has succeeded, a confirmation message will appear on the screen.

A big year for Microsoft Teams

When Microsoft announced that custom emojis were on the way, the company also unveiled a lengthy list of new features for the communication platform. Build 2024 featured several AI-focused items, and Microsoft Teams was no exception. Microsoft Teams Premium users will be able to use intelligent recap, manage who can record and transcribe meetings, and prevent users from sharing content in externally hosted meetings.

Those who do not subscribe to Microsoft Teams Premium will still get plenty of new features to try out this year. In addition to custom emojis, which are now in testing among Microsoft 365 Insiders, Teams will support Slash commands in the compose box, unfurling permalinks, Loop-supported Code Blocks, Mermaid integration into Loop Code Blocks, and adaptive Card-based Loop components.

What you need to know

• The European Commission has shared its preliminary view with Microsoft that the tech giant has breached EU antitrust rules by bundling Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365.
• The Commission's view is that Microsoft relayed dominance in the productivity software space to restrict competition for communication and collaboration tools.
• Microsoft started offering some suites of productivity software without Teams in July 2023, but the European Commission preliminarily found the changes to be "insufficient."

Microsoft finds itself under the microscope of the European Commission once again. The tech giant has been informed that the European Commission has preliminarily found Microsoft to be in violation of antitrust rules. The situation revolves around Microsoft's bundling of Teams with Microsoft 365, which came under legal scrutiny in Europe last summer.

The European Commission opened its investigation of Microsoft's bundling practices in July 2023. At the core of the investigation is a single question: Has Microsoft abused its dominance in the productivity software space to create an unfair advantage for Microsoft Teams?

"Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe," said Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy back in July 2023.

"We must therefore ensure that the markets for these products remain competitive, and companies are free to choose the products that best meet their needs. This is why we are investigating whether Microsoft’s tying of its productivity suites with Teams may be in breach of EU competition rules."

Almost one year later, it appears the European Commission has found, at least preliminarily, that Microsoft did abuse its dominant market position. Part of the European Commission's press release states:

"The Commission preliminarily finds that Microsoft is dominant worldwide in the market for SaaS productivity applications for professional use.

The Commission is concerned that, since at least April 2019, Microsoft has been tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications, thereby restricting competition on the market for communication and collaboration products and defending its market position in productivity software and its suites-centric model from competing suppliers of individual software."

A key concern of the Commission is that Microsoft may have gained a "distribution advantage" since for several years it was not possible for organizations to subscribe to Microsoft 365 without also getting access to Microsoft Teams. Interoperability limitations between Teams and productivity suites other than Microsoft 365 may also be a contributing factor.

What's next for Microsoft Teams?

At this point, the European Commission's view is only preliminary. If that view is confirmed through further investigation, Microsoft would be in violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Earlier this year, Microsoft began offering Teams as a standalone app and gave organizations the option to subscribe to Microsoft 365 without gaining access to Teams. Microsoft announced the decision shortly after the European Commission opened its investigation into bundling practices. But these changes are "insufficient" in the eyes of the European Commission. The body states that "more changes to Microsoft's conduct are necessary to restore competition."

Now that the European Commission has shared its preliminary findings, Microsoft has the right to look at the documents from the Commission and reply in writing. Microsoft also has the option to request an oral hearing to present a case to the European Commission and national competition authorities.

If after that process the European Commission finds that Microsoft is in violation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the governing body can prohibit Microsoft from the conduct in question and impose a fine up to 10% of Microsoft's annual worldwide turnover. Alternatively, the Commission can make Microsoft apply remedies to the situation that would make Microsoft's conduct in line with Article 102.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has been accused of secretly tracking children's data through Microsoft 365 Education.
• Austrian advocacy group filed two complaints against Microsoft centering around data collection and processing.
• Noyb claims that Microsoft collected the browser data of children for advertising purposes and did so without consent.
• If the claims prove true, hundreds of thousands of students may have been affected by Microsoft's data collection.
• Noyb argues that Microsoft dumps GDPR responsibilities onto the schools without providing the necessary information to comply with regulations.

Microsoft could be in legal trouble if recent accusations made against the company prove accurate. Austrian advocacy group Noyb has filed a pair of complaints against Microsoft that center around the tech giant's collection and processing of the data of children using Microsoft 365 Education. Noyb claims that Microsoft collects browser data without user consent for advertising purposes. The accusation is more serious due to it involving children, which have extra protection when it comes to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

If the violations listed by Noyb are accurate, the European Union could fine Microsoft either €20 million ($21.7 million) or four percent of the tech giant's annual turnover from last year, whichever is greater. Importantly, that turnover figure refers to Microsoft's global turnover, not just its turnover in the European Union.

Noyb argues that Microsoft tries to "dump most of its legal responsibilities under the GDPR on schools that provide Microsoft 365 Education services to their pupils or students." According to Noyb, requests for data are left unanswered and schools cannot comply with GDPR requests in practice. "Schools have no way of complying with the transparency and information obligations," said Noyb data protection lawyer Maartje de Graaf.

According to Maartje de Graaf, schools would need to create contracts with Microsoft that include specific instructions surrounding the processing of student data or have a complete audit of Microsoft in relation to processing the data of children. Neither of these are feasible, according to the lawyer. Maartje de Graaf went as far as to say "everyone knows that such contractual arrangements are out of touch with reality."

At the core of this issue is a lack of transparency by Microsoft, according to Noyb. The outlet refers to "a maze of privacy policies, documents, terms and contracts" that have to be navigated. Allegedly, Microsoft is vague regarding what happens to the data of children. Maartje de Graaf claimed even a professional lawyer would find it difficult to determine how data from Microsoft 365 Education is processed. "It is almost impossible for children or their parents to uncover the extent of Microsoft’s data collection," said Maartje de Graaf.

Another issue Noyb claims occurs is that Microsoft 365 Education installs cookies without consent. Those cookies are then used to analyze behavior, collect data, and use information gathered for advertising. Potentially, hundreds of thousands of students could be affected by Microsoft's data policies and practices.

Microsoft being accused of "secretly tracking children" will likely lead to a legal battle. Noyb wants authorities to "finally step up and effectively enforce the rights of minors" and called on the Austrian data protection authority (DSB) to analyze Microsoft's data processing policies and practices related to Microsoft 365 Education and children.

GDPR includes requirements for transparency, so a key question will be if Microsoft clearly communicated what data is collected and how it is processed. 

What you need to know

• Microsoft announced several new and upcoming Teams features during Build 2024.
• Teams Premium users have new AI features, including the option to have AI-generated recaps made from meetings that were only set to be transcribed, rather than recorded.
• Custom app and web experiences powered by Teams are more capable as well, and now support features such as real-time transcription and support for PowerPoint Live.
• Custom emoji support, slash commands, and several other features are on the way to Teams and Loop.

Microsoft unveiled new features for Microsoft Teams at Build 2024. The improvements to Teams include everything from AI capabilities such as using intelligent recap in meetings with only transcription enabled to Live Reactions within custom app experiences connect to Teams. Many of the new features are already generally available, while others will ship gradually over the coming weeks and months.

There is a TON of Microsoft news this week, including new Surface devices, arguably the biggest Windows update in decades, and the entirety of the developer-focused Build conference. Here's a quick rundown of what's new and on the way to Teams.

New AI features

• Intelligent recap support for meetings with only transcription enabled.
• Meeting organizers will be able to manage who can record and transcribe meetings.
• Prevent users from sharing content in externally hosted meetings.

The new AI features listed above are exclusive to Microsoft Teams Premium users. Previously, you could only use intelligent recap for meetings that were recorded. With the new capability, you'll be able to get an AI-generated recap even if a meeting was only set to have transcription enabled.

Another transcription-related feature is that meeting organizers will be able to set "Who can record" controls to include transcription.

Lastly, Microsoft Teams now has the option to prevent users  from sharing content within externally hosted meetings. IT admins can set this on a per-meeting basis.

Improvements and new features for custom app experiences

• Microsoft PowerPoint Live
• Live reactions
• File sharing during a meeting
• Real-time transcription using Azure AI Speech
• Close captions
• Picture-in-picture for iOS and Android
• Noise suppression during a video call
• Call Diagnostics Center analysis

Many custom apps and web experiences use Microsoft Teams for communication. There's a good chance that you've chatted with someone through Teams without knowing the specific service that powered the back end of the video call or chat. These experiences are common among healthcare providers and in some other industries. Microsoft has several new features for custom app experience that are connected to Teams.

All of the new capabilities are straightforward, but welcome, changes to custom app experiences. For example, real-time transcription using Azure AI speech (in preview) can help keep text records, which are requirements for many in medicine and other fields. Closed captions are also useful as they improve accessibility.

PowerPoint Live support and the ability to share files during a meeting make custom app experience a bit closer to the experience you'd expect from Microsoft Teams.

New features in Microsoft Teams and Loop

• Custom emojis and reactions in Teams
• Slash commands in the compose box
• Unfurling permalinks
• Loop-supported Code Blocks
• Mermaid integration into Loop Code Blocks
• Adaptive Card-based Loop components

Microsoft Teams and Loop users have plenty of new features on the way as well, even if they do not subscribe to Teams Premium. Custom emojis have been in the works for a while and are finally going to ship to Teams. These are quite popular in competing platforms, such as Slack, and should be a welcome addition to Teams.

Another Slack-like feature on the way to Teams is support for slash commands. These allow users to use / and a shortcut within the compose box for frequent tasks. Microsoft didn't specify which slash commands will work within Teams, but if support is anything like what's in Slack, the feature will be robust.

Unfurling permalinks, adaptive card-based Loop components, and the other new features in Teams and Loop make a richer experience for users. Adaptive card-based Loop component support is versatile, as it supports components from services such as Trello, Jira, and Confluence Cloud.

What you need to know

• Microsoft is currently transitioning from Classic Teams to a new version of Microsoft Teams.
• The new Microsoft Teams promises better performance while using less memory and has several new features.
• There are, however, some features from Classic Teams that are unavailable in the new Teams.

Microsoft will end support for the classic version of Microsoft Teams on July 1, 2024. The tech giant will move away from Classic Teams in favor of the new Teams app. The move to the new version of Teams should result in better performance, all while using less memory on your system. There are, however, some features that will be removed when you upgrade from Classic Teams to the new Teams app.

You'll see quite a few changes when upgrading from Classic Teams to the new version of Teams. Some of those changes are from entirely new features, but others represent changes to preexisting functionality. Microsoft breaks down all of the changes in a support document, which includes the chart below:

Many of the changes are improvements or refinements of the Classic Teams experience, but there areas in which the new version of Teams is worse than Classic Teams. Specifically, there are some features that are completely removed when upgrading from Classic Teams to the new Teams.

The following features were avaialble in Classic Teams but are not available in the new version of Teams:

• Post level notifications within a channel
• [Some] Search box commands
• Adding a Wiki to a channel tab
• Activity tab in chat
• Ability to choose EDU themed team avatar from a list in the Edit team view In Microsoft Teams for Education
• Ability to sign out from the notification area at the far right of the taskbar (system tray).
• Adaptive Card-based tabs in personal app tabs.
• Third-party and custom sign-in solutions using RunAs or undocumented hooks.

Some options that have been removed have been replaced with arguably better options. For example, you can no longer add a third-party cloud storage service to the OneDrive app in Teams. Instead, you can install a third-party storage app directly from the Teams apps store.

Is new always better?

The new version of Microsoft Teams is better in several areas, such as performance and memory usage, but it's not universally better than Classic Teams. Some features and experiences have changed so much that they might as well be classified as new capabilities. Other features have been removed entirely. For those unaffected by removals, the new Teams is only a positive. But for those who rely on features from Classic Teams, the "upgrade" may not be viewed as an upgrade at all.

"I just tried switching to the new one again - assuming it had finally reached feature parity with the old one. WRONG - it STILL doesn't have contact groups. In fact it doesn't have a contacts list AT ALL," said DaveDansey in the comments section of a recent post of ours about Teams.

"I never use the "Chat" view in the old one. It's a jumbled mess of a list of chats sorted by "most recent". It's plain horrible."

Microsoft replaced accessing contacts from the Chat section of Teams with the new People app. The new experience has some of the same functionality but isn't a 1:1 replacement. 

Have you used the new Teams app? Do you view it as an upgrade to Classic Teams? If it is better, do you think it has improved across the board or is it a mixed bag? Let us know in the comments below.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has announced that it will cut support for its classic Teams client on July 1, 2024, and recommends transitioning to the new Teams app.
• Users running the classic Teams client on unsupported operating systems won't access it after October 23, 2024.
• The Teams classic client will be blocked on supported operating systems on July 1, 2025.

It's official now! Microsoft will end support for its classic Teams client on July 1, 2024, in favor of its new Teams app, which boasts better performance speeds and consumes 50% less memory.

Microsoft was initially slated to automatically upgrade Teams classic users to the new Teams app after March 31, 2024. However, it extended the client's lifeline, giving users ample time to transition to the new Teams app. With the classic client set to hit its end-of-support in the next two months, Teams classic users are encouraged to transition soon.

After July 1, Microsoft won't ship any updates, security patches, or new features to the classic Teams client. This decision doesn't mean that users who fail to make the transition won't be able to use or access the platform. You'll still have access to the platform, but it'll now feature a notification indicating the classic client is no longer supported.

Microsoft has indicated that users running the classic Teams client on unsupported operating systems, including Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and MacOS Sierra 10.12, will receive notifications from August indicating that the app won't work after October 23, 2024. However, according to a spot by Neowin, users will still be able to access the web version.

Teams classic client is expected to continue running on supported Windows and MacOS operating systems until July 1, 2025.

A bright but different future for Teams ahead?

Microsoft surpassed 320 million active monthly users on Teams in September 2023, and the platform continues to grow and evolve. However, its future remains uncertain, especially after the EU antitrust watchdog forced Microsoft to unbundle Teams from its Office 365 services over anti-competitive practices. This decision was despite the company separating its services in the European Economic Area and Switzerland last year.

While commenting on Microsoft unbundling Teams from Office 365, Steve Weber, professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information:

"Until the regulators have their foot on their neck, they're going to hold on to that business strategy for as long as they possibly can. Kicking the can down the road, then they can keep doing this again and again and again. And that's why I feel people like me are trying to stand up and say we need to find better ways to stop this sooner rather; than like trying to close the barn door three days after the horses run away."

Microsoft will now provide Teams as a standalone service for new customers for $5.25, whereas the Office package without Teams will range between $7.75 and $54.75. Strangely, while the reorganization of Microsoft's Office 365 service happened, a new report emerged indicating the company was moving some of its staffers from the Teams Chat app to help with Copilot AI projects.

Microsoft had to debundle Teams from Microsoft 365 last year. The move was made to appease EU regulators and drew criticism for being too little too late. Microsoft then split Teams from Microsoft 365 worldwide amidst antitrust pressure.

Is Microsoft's change of plans an example of trying to shove toothpaste back in the bottle? Has Microsoft gone far enough in creating an equal playing field for competing platforms such as Zoom, Slack, and Google? Did Microsoft use monopolistic practices to convert companies to Teams using dominance in the productivity software space? These questions need answers to predict what the communication sector will look like in five years, so I sat down with Steve Weber to break down Microsoft's past, plans, and get predictions about the future.

Weber is professor of the Graduate School at University of California, Berkeley School of Information. He was a faculty member at Berkeley for 32 years in both political science and the School of Information. He continues to research in his current role.

Microsoft's past with antitrust

Microsoft is no stranger to legal battles, especially when it comes to antitrust cases and laws regarding monopolies. The tech giant's acquisition of Activision Blizzard only went through after a drawn-out legal process involving regulatory bodies from several countries. While Microsoft has been involved in many cases over the years, an example from the 1990s has several parallels to Microsoft's strategy surrounding Teams.

"I'm going to go back to the Internet Explorer days because I think it's almost the iconic example... which was there was this new thing called the browser to help people navigate the World Wide Web and there was a company called Netscape," said Weber.

"And they charged for the browser because it was in a complex piece of software, and Microsoft created a competitive browser and then gave it away for free and performed what I think was indelicately by my friends in the medical field called a 'cashectomy' on Netscape, and basically drove Netscape out of business."

It may seem odd to go back to a situation from over 30 years ago, but Weber explained how the Internet Explorer vs. Netscape competition set the tone for Microsoft.

"It's the iconic piece because I see it as like that's Microsoft Playbook." Weber then related the situation to Teams vs. Zoom.

Antitrust or something else?

Before diving deep into Microsoft's strategies, Weber explained why "antitrust" is not the best term to describe the ongoing Microsoft Teams saga. While antitrust legislation is involved, a different term is more applicable in the eyes of Weber.

"I prefer to use the term competition policy because antitrust is sort of a dated term. It goes back to the late 1800s, early 1900s, when the government was trying to break down these things that were called trusts... Today we would call them big, powerful companies or conglomerates or that sort of thing. So, I think for lay people, [it's best to] think about it in terms of policies that are designed to make sure that we have a competitive marketplace."

While it's technically possible for the U.S. government or other regulatory bodies to break up large companies, that isn't a likely outcome of Microsoft bundling Teams with Microsoft 365. Instead, government agencies are likely to look at if Microsoft unfairly used its monopoly in the productivity space and parleyed it into success in the communication sector.

"What we're talking about here is a company that is big enough that it can then leverage its dominance in one place to create anti-competitive effects. And something that people talk about in adjacent markets. What we're what we're talking about here, for example, is if you are big enough and powerful enough in the cloud market or in this case in the office suite applications."

Microsoft's strategy surrounding Teams is not under the same umbrella as what most people think of when you mention a monopoly, according to Weber.

"Traditional competition policy is simply about reducing monopoly power, where a company gets so big that it dominates a market and has pricing power that it can use to harm consumers. That's not what we're talking about here."

The rapid growth of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams established itself as a major communication platform right as the world was forced to work and learn remotely due to the global pandemic. Microsoft had to rush a few things a bit, but ultimately Teams was ready and available to handle remote communication at a time of unprecedented demand. Of course, there were other players such as Zoom and Google Meet, so Microsoft had to find a way to get people to use Teams.

What Microsoft did was bundle Teams with Microsoft 365. The bundling meant that organizations that already paid for Microsoft 365 wouldn't have to spend any extra money to get Teams. The strategy shifted the comparison from Teams vs. Zoom to Teams (at no added cost) vs Zoom (for an additional fee). It was no longer about which communication platform was better. It was about which was the better bargain.

"I have never met a person who says Teams is better than Zoom. Easier to use, works better, better interface... Everybody I've ever talked to prefers Zoom," said Weber.

"But if you look at what happened with the market when Microsoft started bundling Teams with this Office software, I've seen many friends who work in large enterprises that have [been] pushed onto Teams [by] their IT department because they don't want to pay for Zoom separately even though it's a better product."

Microsoft has since debundled Teams from Microsoft 365, a change which took effect on April 1, 2024. Existing customers will be able to keep their current licensing deal that bundles Teams and Microsoft 365, but new customers will have to pay for Teams as a standalone app.

Why can't Microsoft do this?

A natural question many will ask about this situation is "why can't Microsoft bundle its services together?" After all, capitalism is about competing for customers. If Microsoft can create a better package than Google, Slack, or other companies, isn't it on the other companies to step up? Why is it Microsoft's responsibility to worsen its offering to promote competition?

Weber dove into how regulators and policy experts view the situation:

"So, it's a really good question. It's a question that competition policy experts always will get asked in the court. The government complaint against Apple asks exactly the same question. Why should Apple be forced to, for example, create an iMessage product for the Android phone?

I think what competition policy experts would argue on this is that when you have a dominant position in a market like Office 365 does, for productivity suite software, the responsibility is different than if you don't have a dominant position in the market.... The logic behind that is that if you don't have a responsibility to open and make you know that kind of choice or say enable that choice, then it's just too easy to leverage that dominance in the productivity suite market into video conferencing [and other markets]."

It comes back to leveraging pre-existing dominance. Microsoft has reached a point where its Office software is so dominant that anything bundled with Office becomes a no-brainer.

To take the situation to hyperbole, Microsoft could bundle things tangentially related to Office to create the best bargain. For example, if Microsoft rented an office building for free to anyone that used Microsoft 365, that would create an unfair advantage for the hypothetical Microsoft-owned commercial real estate sector.

Too little too late?

The fear of regulators and Microsoft's competitors is that Microsoft could create a market in which the tech giant obtained dominance in video conferencing before debundling Teams from Microsoft 365. The company could then leverage its position to change the terms of Teams or just sit happily on its throne of its communication kingdom.

Have you ever tried to get a group of friends to switch from WhatsApp to Telegram or another messaging service? My guess is you ran into friction. Now imagine that at enterprise scale when thousands of messages and threads are involved. Companies can't just swap from Teams to Zoom or Google Meet overnight.

The argument is that Microsoft leveraged its Office dominance to gain a foothold in communications that can't be undone even through unbundling.

Microsoft Teams is no longer included with Microsoft 365. Organizations have to subscribe to and install Teams separately. But that change only came after the EU stepped in, and the competitors filed complaints.

Did Microsoft wait to debundle until it has already leveraged the dominance of Microsoft 365 to build the user base of Teams? Is Teams interoperable with other communication platforms to the same extent as it connects to Microsoft 365? Does the fact that many organizations will get to keep previous bundled pricing make the move empty?

Weber argues that Microsoft's own actions prove that Teams being bundled with Office is part of a business strategy, and that changing plans to appease the EU and other regulators weakens some arguments Microsoft could make.

"They make it very clear by their decision to unbundle it in one place... it's a business model decision that is determined not by what's good for the market, not by what customers need, but by the level of regulatory pressure that they feel to act and which they want to relieve before they get, you know, sued by the FTC or the DOJ...

But ultimately when they do it in one place... it's hard for them to argue, for example, that there is technological complexity that that gets in the way of changing that."

Weber argues that part of Microsoft's strategy was to stick with its bundling plan until forced to do otherwise, and that by the time regulators stepped in the tech giant would already have made its mark.

"Until the regulators have their foot on their neck, they're going to hold on to that business strategy for as long as they possibly can," said Weber.

"Kicking the can down the road, then they can keep doing this again and again and again. And that's why I feel people like me are trying to stand up and say we need to find better ways to stop this sooner rather; than like trying to close the barn door three days after the horses run away."

Will Microsoft change?

Microsoft is a very different company than it was in the 1990s, but Weber argues some business strategies are still in place from before the turn of the century. Microsoft is dominant in several sectors, which creates a risk of anti-competitive behavior being effective. We've seen the EU and Microsoft competitors argue that's exactly what happened with Teams.

Will Microsoft use a similar strategy with other emerging technologies? It seems likely, as the tech giant is rolling AI and Copilot into Windows 11 and Microsoft 365. Perhaps Microsoft will have to debundle Copilot from some of its other services in the future. There's also a chance regulators will view AI differently than communication software.

What you need to know

• Microsoft is reportedly undergoing a reorg which will see multiple employees working under the Teams chat app umbrella transition to Copilot.
• While Microsoft Teams is still a priority for the company, it has plunged resources into Copilot to seize a golden opportunity that could potentially present the immense success Teams enjoyed in the early COVID-19 days.
• Copilot for Teams is reportedly the most loved and used Copilot based on customer feedback and research.

Microsoft is undoubtedly placing all its bets on AI advances this year. The company has integrated the technology across most (if not all) of its products and services. 

And as it now seems, the tech giant is shifting its focus from its Teams chat app to its Copilot AI products. According to an internal memo seen by Business Insider, Microsoft is transitioning employees from its Teams chat app to work on Copilot AI products. This means that the company requires more manpower to facilitate its AI advances, which are gaining traction rapidly among users. 

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies and organizations embraced work-from-home and hybrid work. As a result, there was a high demand for video conferencing and collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

 Jared Spataro, Microsoft's head of AI at Work, attributed Teams' rapid adoption and growth to the pandemic, referring to the period as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.” Microsoft Teams hit The Microsoft executive said “We surged on Teams to win” in the memo, indicating the company wants to use a similar approach with Copilot. 

Microsoft wants all hands on deck on Copilot 

Microsoft Teams' hype is seemingly gone with the pandemic, as a bit of normalcy has been restored, with employees back in the office and becoming less dependent on video-conferencing tools for meetings.

As such, multiple employees under the Teams umbrella will now be part of the newly-found central Copilot and “future of work" department with Microsoft's GM, Colette Stallbaumer, at the helm. According to a source with close affiliations, the shake-up will lead to more Microsoft employees losing their jobs (presumably part of the expected 10,000 Microsoft job cuts from last year). 

While addressing Microsoft employees impacted by the change, the Head of AI at Work indicated:

“Going forward, no matter what you do or where you work, your job will be to drive AI transformation.”

Following this change, Microsoft will plunge more resources into Copilot and its advances, but Teams is still a priority. According to Microsoft spokesman Frank Shaw, Copilot for Teams is Microsoft's most used and loved service per customer feedback and research.

This happens as Teams hit over 320 million active monthly users as of December 2023 amid pressure from the EU Commission that recently forced Microsoft to unbundle Teams from its Office 365 package due to anticompetitive practices complaints from Salesforce-owned Slack. 

Microsoft already made a multi-billion dollar investment in AI, further strengthening its partnership with OpenAI. While OpenAI has recently found itself in the corridors of justice for copyright infringement and abandoning its founding agreement, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says “It wouldn't matter if OpenAI disappeared tomorrow. We have the data, IP rights, and all the capability.”

Microsoft might make similar moves in the future in favor of AI. It is now the world's most valuable company after hitting $3 trillion in market capitalization, with market analysts attributing this success to its early investment and adoption of generative AI across its products and services.

What you need to know

• Microsoft is adding AI-powered capabilities to its video-conferencing app, Teams.
• The features include intelligent call recap and enhancements for the Copilot in meeting experience, designed to provide information and insights from the meeting chat and generate meeting transcripts.
• Hybrid meetings on Teams are also about to improve with Microsoft IntelliFrame, which will help identify and capture individual video feeds of each in-room participant.

Microsoft Teams is arguably one of the best video conferencing and productivity tools available in the workspace market. This can be attributed to the nifty features it ships with, which are designed to enhance communication while improving hybrid work. 

It isn't a secret that Microsoft is placing all its bets on generative AI. The company has integrated the technology across its wide portfolio of products and services, and it recently announced that it is supercharging Microsoft Teams with a handful of Copilot-themed features.

An AI infused Microsoft Teams for better collaboration

Right off the bat, Microsoft has highlighted its plans to enhance the Copilot in meeting experience in May. The feature will provide information and insights from the meeting chat and generate meeting transcripts for future reference. Teams users will get a comprehensive account of everything that transpired during the meeting directly from Copilot in the meeting chat, including the transcript and chat thread.

Copilot is also making its way to Teams' chat compose box. As you'd expect, you can leverage its capabilities to fine-tune your message before sending it. Microsoft says the capability to generate messages using a prompt will be available soon, too.

The new enhancements include a neat feature dubbed intelligent call recap. The AI-powered feature generates insights and recaps for VoIP and Public Switched Telephone Network calls in Teams. It's expected to ship to general availability for Teams Premium and Copilot users in June.

It's about to get even better for hybrid roles

Microsoft acknowledges that Teams users often encounter issues, especially when the meeting consists of both h in-room and remote attendees. Trying to figure out the meeting attendees in the room or, even worse, who's speaking can be like an extreme sport.

But this is about to change with Microsoft IntelliFrame, a neat feature that leverages Cloud AI to "identify and capture individual video feeds of each in-room participant." The feature is enabled by default to ensure that hybrid meetings run smoothly and seamlessly. 

It's worth noting that Microsoft intends to complement the feature with automatic camera-switching. It will leverage AI capabilities to "determine and select the optimized view of each person in a meeting room." It is slated to hit broad availability later this year. 

While we've only highlighted some of the key AI features shipping to Microsoft Teams, even more features, including voice isolation and speaker recognition, are expected to ship to the platform later this year.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has detailed its plans to unify the Teams client on Windows 11.
• The new unified Teams client will support all Teams accounts, including work, school, and personal.
• Insiders can start testing the new Teams client today in the latest Windows 11 preview build.

Microsoft has finally unveiled its plans for a unified Teams client that supports all three Teams account types. Up until now, there have been two Teams clients, one for commercial accounts and another for personal accounts. By default, Windows 11 has come preloaded with the client for personal accounts, meaning those who use Teams for work or school have been forced to download a second Teams client before being able to gain access.

Now, starting with the Windows 11 version 24H2 release coming later this year, Windows 11 will come preloaded with a unified Teams client that supports both commercial and personal accounts. This means users will no longer be required to download a separate client to use Teams for work, and Windows will natively support logging into Teams with a work or school account.

The new Teams client includes a slightly updated user interface that lets users switch between their work environment and personal chats. The client will handle Teams meetings, conversations, calendar alerts, and more. Additionally, notifications have been updated with information such as which account the notification belongs alongside other important details.

Users will also be able to launch two instances of the new Teams client, one for personal and one for work, via separate icons if they wish to have both views open simultaneously. The company says the older, personal Teams client that comes preloaded with Windows 11 currently will be removed in a future update.

What you need to know

• Microsoft has pushed the end of availability for Teams classic from March 31, 2024, to July 1, 2024.
• The company says this will give admins ample time to address any issues they might have encountered while transitioning to the new Teams app.
• The new Teams client shipped to general availability in October 2023 and has already reached full feature parity for almost all features compared to the classic version of the app.

Microsoft shipped its new Teams app to broad availability last year in October. As you might already know, the new client is two times faster and consumes 50% less memory when compared to the classic version. It also promises a smooth transition between chats and channels (up to 1.7 times faster).

The tech firm made it easy for users to switch between the new Teams app and the classic version. You can change the entire user experience of your Teams app by clicking on a toggle. 

However, the company announced in November that it would automatically upgrade users from the classic version to the new Teams app after March 31, 2024. This move was received with mixed feelings, with the vast majority blatantly expressing their preference for the classic version of Teams over the new client.

Luckily, Microsoft has seemingly listened to the users' outcry expressed across social media platforms and has extended the end of availability for its classic Microsoft Teams client.

When is the end of availability for classic Teams client?

Microsoft was initially set to automatically upgrade Teams classic users to the new Teams app after March 31, 2024, but it has pushed its end of availability to July 1, 2024.

While making the announcement, Microsoft indicated:

"We're aware of the concerns around our timeline. Classic Teams users who have encountered issues moving to new Teams or who don't meet the prerequisites to upgrade will still have access to the classic Teams client until July 01 2024 at the earliest. This will give admins more time to address any issues encountered during this process."

Microsoft recommends transitioning to the new Teams app as it has already hit feature parity with the Teams 'classic.' Moving forward, the company will only add new features to the new Teams app. 

As of December 2023, Microsoft had surpassed 320 million active monthly users on Teams. Perhaps the launch of the new Teams client had something to do with this spike, similar to when Microsoft Copilot contributed to the growth of Bing's user base.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams ships with a beauty app from cosmetics company Maybelline.
• The app lets users apply any of its 12 different looks and styles before joining or during a meeting.
• The beauty app leverages AI capabilities to identify "over 70 points of the user's face to create a "virtual map" that enables the seamless application of the digital filters."

With more organizations and companies leaning more toward hybrid and remote work (especially since the COVID-19 pandemic), the dependence and reliance on online meeting and messaging apps like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Slack, and more is at an all-time high.

Admittedly, the companies behind these platforms have been doing their bit and shipping new features and updates ever so often to make the work-from-home experience seamless, effective, and efficient. Microsoft is meticulous at this, as it ships new features to Microsoft Teams (free) and Teams Premium every month. As it happens, the company shipped new features and improvements to the tool in January. 

We already know the benefits that come with hybrid roles, including convenience, comfort, and more. A company running its operations remotely heavily relies on apps like Microsoft Teams to foster effective communication through meetings and messages. Therefore, there's an implied importance to keep up appearances during these calls.

It can be difficult to achieve this if there's some sort of laxity bundled with your daily workload, which at times may prevent some from having time for the extra effort to begin with. But worry not. I'd honestly forgotten about the Maybelline app in Microsoft Teams until I recently stumbled on a TikTok video highlighting it. 

According to Microsoft:

"The Maybelline Beauty app in Teams uses AI-powered functionality enabled by Modiface, an augmented reality technology for the beauty industry owned by Maybelline's parent company L'Oreal. Modiface AI identifies over 70 points of the user's face to create a "virtual map" that enables the seamless application of the digital filters."

It builds on Microsoft Teams' virtual meeting experience and has been available for a hot minute. We first talked about the Maybelline app shipping to Microsoft Teams last year in July and how it allows users to express themselves within a meeting using 12 different looks.

How to use the Maybelline app while in a Teams meeting

1. First, join the meeting and click on the Video effects option.
2. Next, select More Video Effects, scroll down the right pane, and click on Maybelline under the Filters category.
3. Scroll down the view all and pick your favorite look
4. Finally, hit the Join Now button.

You can also apply these filters even if you're already in an ongoing meeting. To do so, simply follow the steps outlined below:

1. Click More at the top of your meeting screen and select Video Effects.
2. Scroll down in the right pane and select Maybelline under the Filters category.
3. Next, scroll down to view all and select your favorite look
4. Finally, click Preview to see your selected look without others viewing yet, then click on the Apply button to turn on your favorite look.

Microsoft has doubled down on its efforts to improve the virtual meeting experience on Teams, having recently shipped Microsoft Mesh to broad availability. It essentially makes a virtual and immersive meeting in a 3D space feel like a real-life experience. Did you know about the Maybelline app in Teams, and will you be using it during your online meetings? Also, if you've been using it, what's your experience so far? 

What you need to know

• Custom emoji support appears to be on the way to Microsoft Teams.
• An animated Pepe the Frog emoji was spotted within several internal Microsoft Teams chats, according to a recent report.
• While there's no official word that custom emoji support is on the way to Teams, it is a highly requested feature and Microsoft added the feature to its backlog last year.

Microsoft Teams may soon get a feature that's been on Slack and Discord for years. Microsoft's communication platform looks like it will finally support custom emojis. A report by The Verge shares that internal Microsoft chats on Teams have shown a custom animated emoji of Pepe the Frog. That specific character has a past that I'll touch on below, but first I'll focus on custom emoji support in general.

Several sources told The Verge about custom emojis appearing in chats. A similar feature has been available on other communication platforms for years, so it's nice to see Microsoft play catch up. The current testing of the custom emoji feature is in the "dogfood" versions of Teams, according to The Verge. Dogfooding is a common practice for software development in which a company tests features itself in everyday usage before rolling features out to alpha and beta testers.

It's already possible to share emojis and GIFs within Microsoft Teams, but the emojis are somewhat limited and GIFs are through Giphy. The addition of custom emoji support would add a new layer of communication and give people a chance to reply with personalized flair. Of course, there needs to be some oversight to prevent inappropriate emojis from popping up. The feature will reportedly require IT admin approval to add a custom emoji.

A long time coming

Since custom emojis are already supported on rival platforms, many have wanted them on Teams for a while. A Microsoft employee named Jason S. confirmed that the ability to import custom emoji into Teams was added to the company's backlog seven months ago. Since then, several comments have followed up on that feedback page asking for custom emoji support to roll out.

We use Slack at Future (the parent company of Windows Central). There are loads of custom emojis in our channels, including people's faces and inside jokes. They're an easy way to add a bit of humor to a day filled with hundreds of messages. It would be nice to see similar functionality make its way to Microsoft Teams.

Who is Pepe the Frog

The Pepe the Frog meme has a strange history that's quite controversial. Depending on who you ask, Pepe the Frog is either a symbol of love, a symbol of hate, or just a playful meme. Its definition also changes over time as usage of the meme changes.

Insider Tech has an extensive video (shown above) that breaks down the origin and evolution of Pepe the Frog. That video is now four years old, but it serves as a good recap for the meme and its odd history.

Without full context of the chats that included Pepe the Frog within Microsoft Teams, it's not possible to say with 100% certainty how they were intended. But by all accounts, it seems the famed frog was shared with playful intent.

What you need to know

• Microsoft rolled out several improvements to the free version of Teams in December and January.
• It's now possible to set specific nicknames within different communities.
• Teams now has a feature that makes it easier to start a chat with a contact in Teams by using their email address.
• The quick access channel layout has been simplified as well to make it easier to use on mobile devices.

With so many versions of Microsoft Teams receiving new features and improvements on a regular basis, it can be difficult to keep track of the communication app's capabilities. Luckily, Microsoft summarizes the changes in Teams at the end of each month. The free version of Microsoft Teams received several features in December and January that make it easier to keep your communities, channels, and chats organized.

It's now possible to set specific nicknames within different communities. This is arguably the most useful feature, as it lets you specify who you are on a per-community basis. In addition to having the option to set a nickname such as "Nick" rather than "Nicholas," you can add information like "Nick (editor)" or any other information you want available at a quick glance.

Microsoft also rolled out the option to create a Teams chat by typing an email address of a contact within a search box at the top of a screen.

Accessing channels within a community is a bit easier as well, as Microsoft has added the ability to switch between three channels directly from the community page. 

All the new features should be available to Microsoft Teams (free) users now, despite the fact that the change log was shared in an Insider blog post.

Here are the highlights for what's new to Teams free users in January 2024, as outlined by Microsoft:

• You can now set community specific nicknames to make it easier for others to recognize you.
• It’s easier than ever to connect with contacts in Teams. Simply add them to a chat with their email address.
• We’ve simplified design to provide quicker access channels within a community on mobile.
• Community owners can make their space stand out by adding a community banner image.

Set a nickname in Microsoft Teams

Setting specific nicknames in different communities is a welcome change to the free version of Microsoft Teams. I used to manage my American football team through Teams, so I know some of the pitfalls and roadblocks of being in multiple communities. Adding nicknames on a per-community basis can come in handy when you want to add a title or connection. It's also useful for when you go by a nickname in one community and your legal name in another.

There's a member of my coaching staff with a nickname that all the players and coaches know him by. I'm fairly certain there are members of the team that don't know his real name. If we still had a community for the team in Microsoft Teams, it would make sense for him to list his nickname. But if he were in another community for coaches in the UK, it would make more sense to use his legal name and perhaps a specification within parentheses listing his team.

Microsoft shared the steps on how to set your nickname on the Windows version of Microsoft Teams (free):

1. Select ‘Manage community’ after right clicking the community’s name or tapping the more options (…) menu.
2. Then tap ‘Set nickname’ next to your account name to set your nickname in this community.

The company also shared how to change your nickname on Android and iOS:

1. When in community settings (which you can access by tapping the community’s name at the top of the screen), tap your profile picture in the members list and select ‘Set nickname’.