Microsoft Teams Adds New Live Chat Feature and Other Capabilities for Businesses

Microsoft has announced several new capabilities for Microsoft Teams at its Enterprise Connect 2025 Conference to help businesses boost productivity in a hybrid work environment. This time around, the company highlighted enhancements for chat and collaboration, meetings, Teams Phone, Teams Rooms, security, and much more.

New chat and collaboration capabilities

First off, Microsoft Teams has introduced a new Live chat feature for small businesses. This feature allows website visitors to chat with the customer support team in Microsoft Teams. The Live chat widget provides a dashboard for managing conversations, notifications for incoming chat requests, and an option to view previous customer interactions. This capability is currently available for US-based customers, with the general availability expected in March.

In Microsoft Teams chat, the @nearby feature allows users to easily connect with colleagues who are physically close to them. This capability could be particularly useful for quickly finding and messaging people who are in the same office, building, or event. Moreover, Microsoft has introduced the ability to resize the Teams desktop app and panes. There are also new options for zooming in and out to help users find the perfect size for their display.

Additionally, Microsoft Teams now allows users to add a Loop workspace tab to standard channels. This feature is currently available in public preview for commercial customers. Microsoft has also simplified the process of sharing files across different chats and channels. Users can share a file from a chat or channel conversation directly to 1:1 chats, group chats, or channels.

Microsoft has announced the general availability of the new chat and channel experience in Microsoft Teams. The company also plans to update its Teams app with more capabilities like threaded conversations later this year.

Enhancements for meetings, webinars, and Town halls

The intelligent meeting recap feature is now available for webinars and town halls. This capability is available for customers with a Teams Premium and Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Additionally, Microsoft Teams has added a new “End event” button that lets organizers and presenters end the session for all attendees.

Furthermore, Microsoft has introduced the ability for town hall and webinar organizers to post and reply to questions using the title “organizer” in the Q&A experience. The company also announced that Digital Video Recording (DVR) support is coming to town halls next month. Microsoft Teams now supports hosting town halls with up to 50,000 concurrent attendees.

Microsoft Teams has released a new feature that lets users pop out meeting panes from the meeting window. For IT admins, Microsoft has added separate policies to control transcription and recording for town halls and webinars. There is also a new feature that allows organizers to send separate invites to Town hall participants.

Microsoft Teams Phone updates

Starting in April, Microsoft Teams Phone extensibility for Dynamics 365 Contact Center and certified ISV solutions will be available in public preview. The latest update also brings a new feature that enables users to use the Copilot AI assistant without turning on transcription or recording.

In Microsoft Teams Phone, the Queues app is getting a new barge/whisper/monitor/takeover feature that allows team leads and supervisors to manage and train junior agents. Moreover, Teams Calling Plans customers in the US and Canada can now send and receive SMS messages directly from Microsoft Teams. This capability is available for both desktop and mobile users.

Microsoft has also announced the general availability of Teams Phone Mobile with support for several new operators. These include Bell Canada, Odido (Netherlands), Vodafone UK, and Vodafone Germany.

New features for Microsoft Places and Teams Rooms

The Room recommender feature will become generally available for commercial customers next month. This capability suggests suitable meeting rooms to facilitate easier in-person collaboration. Microsoft will also add facilitator agent support in Teams Rooms for Windows and Android. This feature provides real-time AI-generated notes and action items during hybrid and in-person meetings.

Microsoft has launched a new Teams Rooms Pro Management portal in public preview for commercial customers. This portal offers a unified device management experience for Teams Rooms on Windows.

In addition to this, Microsoft has highlighted a couple of new security features coming to its Teams collaboration platform. Microsoft Teams can now auto-upgrade meeting protection based on the sensitivity of files shared during the meeting. However, this feature requires a Microsoft 365 E5 and Teams Premium license.

Microsoft Teams has added a new feature that automatically blocks malicious file types and alerts users about potentially harmful URLs in meetings. Moreover, a new AI-powered security feature is designed to detect sensitive information (such as social security numbers and credit card numbers) during screen sharing.

Lastly, Microsoft has announced the general availability of several new Teams-certified devices this month, The list includes Logitech Zone Wireless 2 (Native Bluetooth certification), Yealink SkySound CM50 Dante Audio Kit, Logitech Rally Bar No-Radio, AudioCodes RXVCam50M Camera, and AudioCodes RXVCam70 Dual-Lens PTZ Camera.