With Microsoft Teams completing one year, the company is all set to roll out a set of new features like Cortana integration and more for intelligent communications and collaboration, to the service throughout 2018.
Since its launch last year, Microsoft has released several updates including the major release in January this year, to make it more powerful communication hub for teams. Being a part of Office 365, Teams provide enterprise-grade security and compliance standards at scale to meet the needs of different teams.
The newly added integration with Cortana virtual assistant will enable teams to use voice commands for making calls, joining meetings, as well as adding other members to a team.
Another new feature called cloud recording can automatically transcript the meeting recording with one-click. Teams can play these recordings, read captions, and search within conversations. Microsoft will advance this feature in future by including facial recognition capability, so that meeting remarks can be properly attributed.
Team members will also be able to access a number of new features to manage calls. A background blurring option during video calls will hide the background of a webcam feed, while an inline translation feature will help members who speak different languages by translating the chats and posts in Teams.
Microsoft is also planning to add a mobile feature so that the users can share live video, photos or other media from their handsets. The new Direct Routing service is aimed at making Teams a full voice service.
Additionally, Microsoft Teams native application will be available for consistent and better calling experience on other meeting room devices like desk phones from AudioCodes and Yealink, and conference room phones from Polycom, Yealink and Crestron.
Microsoft Teams will also be supported on Microsoft Surface Hub, to enhance Teams abilities in confined spaces and meeting rooms. HP and Lenovo are also joining partners like Logitech, Polycom and Crestron to provide HD video, rich audio, one-touch join and more to transform the meeting experience altogether.
Also read: Cortana now supports more smart home devices and IFTTT
The new features will boost the adoption of Microsoft Teams, which is already used by 200,000 organizations around the world. The new capabilities are expected to be accessible in the second quarter of 2018.
