As part of today"s Microsoft Ignite 2023 developers conference, the company announced a ton of new features it plans to add to its Teams online meeting and collaboration service. The announcement included word that Teams would make its new immersive spaces feature generally available sometime in January 2024.
The feature, which launched in a public preview in October, will allow Teams users to join meetings in full 3D virtual spaces as avatars. In addition to ordinary meetings, these immersive spaces can also let team members have fun, by roasting virtual marshmallows, throwing beanbags, answering icebreaker questions and more.
Microsoft Mesh, the platform used to make custom Teams immersive spaces, will also be made generally available in January.
Some of the other new features coming to Teams meetings include:
- Voice isolation in Teams meetings and calls: This AI-driven feature is an advanced noise suppression capability that leverages user’s voice profiles and suppresses other people’s voices in the background during a Teams meeting or call. AI in Teams will recognize an individual’s voice and filter only their voice in Teams meetings and calls. This feature rollout has begun and will be generally available in early 2024.
- Decorate your background: Meeting participants will be able to use generative background effects in Teams to show up at their best – even when the space they’re working from isn’t at its best. With Decorate your background, meeting participants can use the power of AI to generate a background that decorates and enhances their real-world room, by cleaning up clutter or adding plants to a wall. This feature will be available early next year in Teams Premium.
Teams chats and channels will get some new additions as well, including a way to add a group chat profile picture, a way to customize default reactions and more. Microsoft also announced that the new Teams experience is now available on the web for people who use the Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome browsers.