Even after the pandemic, Teams secured a place in the daily lives of users, even those who are not telecommuting. Microsoft knows this and has maintained its proposal to be constantly improved. Now it has given Teams a lot of new features that all users will want to try. Discover everything that has been prepared!
Based on user recommendations, Microsoft has introduced a completely revamped version of Teams. This new app was developed around four axes: speed, performance, flexibility and intelligence – providing up to 2x faster performancewhile uses 50% less memory so users can save time and collaborate more efficiently.
The user experience has also been improved to make it simpler to use and easier to find everything in one place. These improvements are the foundation for new AI-powered experiences such as Copilot, announced earlier this month.
Many of the improvements have been incorporated into the existing Teams application, most of which will only be available with the new version. Here is a summary of the news:
- Faster – The big goal for Teams was to make it twice as fast while using half the system resources. To this end, a base investment was made to reformulate the platform in order to optimize the data, network, chat, and video architecture to achieve more speed and better performance. Through collaboration with the independent benchmarking company GigaOm, it was possible to quantify gains in terms of performance, with emphasis on the opening of the application and meetings, now twice as fast, and memory consumption, halved during the test preview of the new Teams, compared to the previous edition.
- Simpler – Incorporation of improvements to the core Teams experience will make it easier to maintain your notifications, search for information, manage messages and organize channels – all in fewer clicks
- more flexible – Because many of our customers have organizations that span multiple accounts, a substantial investment has been made to improve the authentication model, synchronization, and notification systems to provide a seamless and consistent experience. For example, many customers need to collaborate with people outside their organization, which sometimes means having multiple Teams channels. Instead of logging in and out every time you have to respond to a request, you can now stay connected regardless of the channel and profile you are using.
- More intelligent – The new Teams will be the foundation for the next generation of AI experiences, including those previously announced, such as Intelligent Recap and Copilot. AI will streamline teamwork, sharing recaps of past meetings or chat conversations.
The new Microsoft Teams App should be fully available by the end of this year. Customers using Windows can now access the new app in preview. The goal is to extend the experience to a wider range of customers, including Mac users, in 2023.
End users included in the Public Preview program will have access to the new Teams right away, the wider set of commercial customers will need an administrator to join, and only then will end users have access. They can also switch to old Teams at any time.
