As part of a blog post talking about the 3 year anniversary of Microsoft Teams and 44 million daily active users, 6 new features coming later this year were announced.
Want to stay up to date on Microsoft Teams news, check out my every other Tuesday email update here.
Real-time noise suppression on meetings
Microsoft is using AI technology on the meeting to remove background noise like a vacuum cleaner, aircon or other noises like a food packet rustling. They showed a great video demo of the noise of a crisp (chip for my American friends) packet noise being removed while a person was talking, it was pretty impressive.
Raise hand in meetings
A commonly asked for feature, when remote in a meeting, it’s often hard to get attention to input or ask a question. This feature allows you to raise a virtual hand to make people in the meeting aware you wish to speak or ask a question
Teams app integration in RealWear head-mounted devices
A great example of on the job first-line worker user of Microsoft Teams. Teams app is directly integrated into a head-mounted audio/video device.
Offline and low-bandwidth support
Lets you read chat messages and write responses, even without an internet connection.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice in the U.S
A big deal for the SME market, Microsoft 365 Business Voice includes a phone system, audio conferencing, and calling plan in one package for businesses for up to 300 users.
It was previously launched in the UK and Canada markets only, but will now be available in the US
Bookings app in Teams
Makes it easy to schedule, manage and conduct virtual appointments. More details in a specific blog here
Microsoft also announced Pop-out chat, but that has been announced previously.
Devices – Bose and Collab Bars
Bose will be releasing a Microsoft Teams certified device, the Bose Noise Cancelling headphone 700 UC available for purchase in late spring and the first collaboration bar from Yealink is now shipping (I’ve had some hands-on, more details coming on the blog soon).
I really like the bookings feature- perhaps this is what a team calendar could look like in the future (something desperately needed in Teams)? Ideally, I would like to see the excellent Microsoft Scheduler / Calendar.help turned into a bot so I can arrange meetings in Teams rather than being somewhat dependent on Outlook.
Nonetheless, progress is progress and the pace of innovation in Teams is incredible.