Microsoft Teams will soon get Live transcripts, Chat bubbles, Live Reactions and several new features

Microsoft today announced several new features coming to Microsoft Teams in the coming months. Apart from Together Mode, Dynamic View, built-in Cortana in Teams mobile apps, Microsoft Teams displays and video filters, Microsoft announced the following new features.

Live reactions:

Soon, you will be able to react during a meeting using emojis that will appear to all participants. Live reactions is a shared feature with PowerPoint Live Presentations, which allows audience members to provide instant feedback to the presenter. We are also bringing PowerPoint Live Presentations to Teams in the future, further enabling audience engagement right from Teams. 

Speaker attribution and translation for live captions and transcripts:

Soon Teams will add speaker attribution to captions so that everyone knows who is speaking. Live transcripts, coming later this year, provide another way to follow along with what has been said and who said it. After a meeting, the transcript file is automatically saved in the chat tab for that meeting. Later in the year, we’ll add the ability to translate live captions into subtitles so you can follow along in a language other than the one being spoken.

Chat bubbles:

Currently Teams users need to manually open a chat window to view the chat screen. Soon, however, chats sent during a Teams meeting will surface on the screens of all meeting participants, making the chat more central to the conversation.

Interactive meetings for 1,000+ participants:

Teams meetings are growing to support up to 1,000 participants. But sometimes you need to bring more people together to watch a presentation or discussion, and Teams will support this type of meeting experience for up to 20,000 participants.

Microsoft Whiteboard updates:

Whiteboard in Teams will soon be updated with new features including faster load times, sticky notes, text, and drag and drop capabilities. These features enable team members who don’t have access to a touchscreen or Surface Hub to participate in whiteboarding sessions during Teams meetings.

Tasks app:

The Task app in Teams, rolling out this month, provides a new unified view of tasks from across Microsoft To Do, Planner, and Outlook. Smart lists like “Assigned to me” bring tasks together across different shared plans, whether you’re on desktop, web, or mobile. Add Tasks as a tab in a channel and get your familiar Planner tab experience with the new list view.

Suggested replies:

Get your message across with just one tap! Suggested replies in Teams chat uses assistive AI to create short responses based on the context of the previous message. So the next time someone asks you “Do you have time to meet today?” you can respond “I sure do!” without even pulling up your keyboard. This feature will be rolling out this month.

Reflect messaging extension:

The new Reflect messaging extension gives managers, leaders and teachers an easy way to check in with how their team or students are feeling — either in general, or about a specific topic like work-life balance, the status of a project, current events, or a change within the organization. Once installed, the extension provides suggested check-in questions and the ability to add custom questions that team members can respond to in a poll-like experience. Managers or teachers can also choose to make poll results anonymous. The Reflect messaging extension will be available in the coming weeks.

Source: Microsoft