Microsoft Teams – a “collaboration platform” that is part of the MS 365 suite of applications – has made numerous changes over the last 18 months, and the company has announced more are on the way.

New features to be added in that time include “intelligent recap” for meetings; custom emojis; co-editable code blocks for developers; and Meet Now for “quick, informal huddle in chat”.

A benchmark report last year by Gigaom compared the performance of the Microsoft Teams desktop application for Windows (version 1.1, release June 2022) and new Teams (version 2.1, preview release March 2023).

 

Microsoft Teams.

 

It tested installation behavior, application responsiveness and resource utilisation and found the new Teams was up to 3x faster to install, up to 2x faster launching Teams, 2.5x faster joining meetings, 1.7x faster loading chats, and a 50 per cent reduction in tests of disk and memory resource consumption.

That was then. On Tuesday Microsoft announced that it was time to take the next step with the addition of a new chat and channels experience, which is coming to public preview in November.

“The pace of work has increased exponentially, making it more challenging to keep up with the high volume of conversations, manage messages scattered across different locations, and find information,” MS said. 

To this end, the new Teams will “simplify your digital workspace” by bringing chats, teams and channels into one place under Chat, “making it easier to access, triage and organise your conversations”.

 

Screenshot from new MS Teams video.

“At launch, a self-service, guided onboarding flow within the product will help users discover the new experience and configure it to their preferences. Users who prefer to keep chat and channels separate can easily do so during the onboarding process, or at any time later, without needing IT assistance,” the company said.

It says the new @mentions view helps users stay up to speed on messages directed at them.

And there is more about … triage. 

“Breeze through your daily triage with the new filters that help you focus on what’s important now, like unread messages in chats or channels, without muted conversations or meeting chats getting in the way,” Microsoft said. “Catch up asynchronously on meeting chats at your convenience with Copilot meeting recap.”

The next iteration of chat and channels is coming to desktop, mobile, iOS and Android.

MS said it is testing threaded conversations with customers this quarter and will expand testing in early 2025, with broad availability expected in mid-2025. The result should make it easier to keep on top of conversations without having to flick between sections.