Microsoft has recently announced that it will be releasing a number of new and improved features for Microsoft Teams to celebrate three years of it going into service & following a surge in growth as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. To put this ridiculous growth in context, as of March 11th, Microsoft had 32 million daily active users but in the last few days this figure had reached 44 million daily active users.
This increased demand by 40% doesn’t come as a surprise, with many businesses having to adopt remote working for the foreseeable future. The new features that Microsoft will be releasing are aimed at improving remote meetings as they will be the default work mode rather than the pre-outbreak exception.
Furthermore, Microsoft will be adding to this by introducing real-time noise suppression features for Teams meetings later in the year. This makes it perfect if you are working from home and have children or pets running around disturbing your flow!
To do this, Microsoft will be making use of AI to limit background noise on calls automatically by focusing on what you are saying via the microphone rather than what is going on around you. In addition to this, Microsoft will also be adding a “raise hand” feature later in the year. This will allow you to raise your hand via a button to ask a question during a Teams meeting.
The game changing feature to be hitting Microsoft Teams will be offline mode, which will allow you to view chat messages and draft responses whilst not connected to the internet. Furthermore, Teams will be also allowing you to put chats into separate windows so you can easily work your way between conversations. You will see that these new features to be released later in the year are geared towards improving the remote working and meeting environment for businesses.
Microsoft have seen this coronavirus outbreak as a real game changer for remote working. “I really do think it’s an inflection point,” stated Microsoft 365 chief Jared Spataro. “We’re going to look back and realize this is where it all changed. We’re never going to go back to working the way that we did.”
These latest plans revealed by Microsoft come only a few days after its greatest competitor, Slack announced its own major redesign and redevelopment.
Next Steps?
If you are looking to get started with Microsoft Teams straight away to allow your business to start remote working then please get in touch with our team of IT experts who will be happy to discuss your requirements.
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