Microsoft Teams Gets a Major Upgrade: New Chat and Meeting Features You Need to Know

Microsoft Teams just got a whole lot smarter and more efficient with its latest February updates, introducing intelligent features that enhance chat, meetings, and collaboration. From adding bots to group chats to scheduling messages and improving webinar experiences, here’s a quick look at everything new in Teams this month.

New chat & collaboration features

Microsoft Teams now allows users to add agents and bots directly to individual and group chats across Windows, macOS, and the web. To add an agent, users will need to click on “Add people, agents and bots” > “Add agents and bots” and then search for the specific agent or bot. Participants in the chat can prompt an agent with an @mention.

Microsoft has also introduced a new feature that lets users send messages to channels at a scheduled date and time. This capability should help employees coordinate with team members across different time zones. Moreover, users can now customize where Teams notifications appear on their screens. Microsoft has also enhanced the app installation process by making it easier to discover apps previously used in group chats, channels, meetings, and more.

Update to meetings, webinars, and town halls

Microsoft is bringing the intelligent meeting recap experiences to webinar and town hall events. However, this feature requires a Microsoft Teams Premium and Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Microsoft has also made it possible for meeting participants to share meeting recaps through links with their colleagues. This new option is available in the meeting thumbnail in chat and the recap tab.

Microsoft Teams now lets meeting organizers, co-organizers, and transcript initiators to change the spoken language settings. Moreover, Microsoft has introduced a new setting that allows administrators to enable Microsoft 365 Copilot for multi-tenant organizations. The default policy for transcription is now “on” for all new tenants. Keep in mind that the transcription setting won’t be enabled by default for all meetings and users will need to enable manually if needed.

Furthermore, users can now join and present events from Teams Rooms on Windows devices. The latest update also allows presenters to moderate Q&A in town hall and webinars. Microsoft Teams allows users to install and update the Network Device Interface (NDI) automatically in the Microsoft Teams desktop app for Windows. Other enhancements include updates to the iPad Teams calendar and a revamped interface for Apple CarPlay for iOS devices.

Enhancements for Microsoft Teams Phone

Microsoft has introduced the ability for third-party developers to extend the PSTN calling experience in Teams Phone with contextual information without requiring users to leave the call experience. Moreover, this release brings the delayed simultaneous ring capabilities to minimize distractions for teams with shared call responsibilities. Administrators can also manage Direct Routing (DR) phone numbers within Teams admin center and through Teams PowerShell cmdlets.

Last but not least, Microsoft announced a couple of new Teams-certified devices in February, including The Owl Bar, Yealink MCore-OPS-T, and Rally Board 65 for Teams Rooms on Android. The company has also added new QR Code authentication capabilities and Jamf support for Shared Device Mode for frontline workers, and you can find more details on the official blog post.