Microsoft recently announced a handful of new features for Microsoft Teams. Over the last few months, the popularity of Microsoft Teams has exploded with more people working from home. Microsoft itself has done several studies recently to understand how to improve remote work to help make it more natural, intuitive, and productive. The result is several exciting new features for Microsoft Teams, including one you might have already heard of Together Mode.

Microsoft Teams Together Mode

This is the most exciting and impactful release for Teams over the past several months. Together mode is a new meeting experience in Teams that uses AI segmentation technology to digitally place participants in a shared background, making it feel like you’re sitting in the same room with everyone else in the meeting or class. Together mode makes meetings more engaging by helping you focus on other people’s faces and body language and making it easier to pick up on the non-verbal cues that are so important to human interaction. It’s great for meetings in which multiple people will speak, such as brainstorms or roundtable discussions, because it makes it easier for participants to understand who is talking. Together mode with auditorium view is rolling out now and will be generally available in August.

Dynamic View for Microsoft Teams

While Together mode offers an extraordinary new meeting experience, it’s not intended for every meeting. Dynamic view is a set of enhancements that gives you more control over how you see shared content and other participants in a meeting. Using AI, meetings dynamically optimize shared content and video participants. New controls—including the ability to show shared content and specific participants side-by-side—let you personalize the view to suit your preferences and needs.

Dynamic view builds on the meetings enhancements announced last month, which include large gallery view (rolling out in August), where you can see a video of up to 49 people in a meeting simultaneously, and virtual breakout rooms, which allow meeting organizers to split meeting participants into smaller groups for things like brainstorming sessions or workgroup discussion.

More important features coming to Microsoft Teams 

• Video filters—We’ve all become familiar with video filters used in photography and social media apps, and now we’re bringing them to Teams. Before joining a meeting, you can use the filters to subtly adjust lighting levels and soften the camera’s focus to customize your appearance.

• Live reactions—Non-verbal cues like smiles and head nods can be challenging to notice in online meetings, making it challenging for presenters to gauge audience reactions and for participants in large meetings to share a sentiment without interrupting the meeting flow. Soon, you will be able to react during a meeting using emojis that will appear to all participants. Live reactions are a shared feature with PowerPoint Live Presentations, allowing audience members to provide instant feedback to the presenter.

• Chat bubbles—During meetings, chat has become a lively space for conversation and idea-sharing. It offers an option for people to participate in the discussion without having to jump in verbally. But it can be challenging to pay attention to video feeds, presentations, and chats all at the same time. Currently, Teams users need to open a chat window to view the chat screen manually. Soon, however, chats sent during a Teams meeting will surface on the screens of all meeting participants, making the chat more central to the conversation.

• Speaker attribution for live captions and transcripts—While Teams already provides live captions as a way to follow along with what is being said in a meeting, soon we will add speaker attribution to captions so that everyone knows who is speaking. Live transcripts, coming later this year, provide another way to follow what has been said and who said it. After a meeting, the transcript file is automatically saved in a tab as a part of the meeting.

• Interactive meetings for 1,000 participants and overflow—There are times when it’s essential to bring large groups together for meetings or classes. For more interactive meetings—where attendees can chat, unmute to talk, and turn on their videos for real-time collaboration—Teams meetings are growing to support up to 1,000 participants. When you want to bring more people together to watch a presentation or discussion, Teams can support a view-only meeting experience for up to 20,000 participants.

Ready to get started with Microsoft Teams

These are some exciting announcements from Microsoft that will positively impact Microsoft Teams for years to come. With millions working from home, it’s essential to understand the different productivity tools available to help your remote and virtual teams. Organizations must be able to stay agile and competitive in today’s climate, and all your workers must possess the ability to communicate and collaborate virtually in real-time easily.