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3 min read

Streamline collaboration with the new chat and channels experience in Microsoft Teams

By
  • Jeff Teper, President, Collaborative Apps and Platforms

Working together can turn great ideas into reality and bring people together as a team. We’ve been paying attention to our customers’ evolving needs in the AI-powered workplace, which require faster, simpler, and smarter solutions to achieve more. Over the past year, we’ve made Microsoft Teams twice as fast and added new features like intelligent recap for meetings; custom emojis for fun and expression; co-editable code blocks for developers; “Meet now” for quick, informal huddle in chat; and more.

We’re thrilled to announce the next step in our journey to shape the future of collaboration with the introduction of the new chat and channels experience. This new experience is designed to help you collaborate more efficiently and effectively. It’s simple by default, enabling everyone to stay on top of what matters, and it’s powerful on demand, allowing you to organize information and communicate your way. The new chat and channels experience is coming to public preview in November.

“The redesigned Microsoft Teams chat & channels experience has simplified the way we work at T‑Mobile. It has streamlined our communication, and our employees appreciate the flexibility to customize Teams to match the way they like to collaborate.”

—Aravind Manchireddy, SVP, Technology Operations, T‑Mobile

Simple by default

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. We’ve redesigned the chat and channels experience to simplify your digital workspace by bringing chats, teams, and channels into one place under Chat. This integrates both chat and channels into your critical workflows, making it easier to access, triage, and organize your conversations.

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 new @mentions view helps you get up to speed on messages directed at you in one place, ensuring conversations that require your attention do not slip through the cracks. 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. Catch up asynchronously on meeting chats at your convenience with Copilot meeting recap.

A screenshot of Teams showing the @mention view selected, displaying an interactive single list of all your @mention messages across chat, channels, and meetings, and the ability to reply directly on the side pane.

Powerful on demand

Communicating and collaborating with multiple people on multiple projects can feel like trying to keep your desk or office organized. Just as a cluttered workspace can make it harder to find what you need and stay productive, a busy digital workspace can make it challenging to catch up, find information, and stay effective throughout the day. The new chat and channels experience in Teams empowers you to organize your work environment to fit your needs. With custom sections, you can bring all relevant conversations on a project or topic together into one place, be it in chats, channels, meetings, including Teams bots or AI agents. The new favorites section is available for everyone by default, bringing together all your pinned chats and channels from the previous experience.

A screenshot of Teams showing favorites and custom sections in the chat and channels list , with the ability to organize your chat, channels, and meeting chat conversations to fit your needs.

Every user has a unique way of working. Now, you can customize Teams chat and channels to align with your personal workflow and preferred information consumption style. With new controls, you can choose to view chat and channels separately, see message previews, or display all channels in a single list. This way, you create a digital workspace that truly helps you soar.

A screenshot of Teams displaying new controls that let you view chat and channels combined or separate and let you choose to show message preview and time stamps.

See what’s next for the new chat and channels experience in Teams

Embark on your journey with the new chat and channels experience today and transform the way you connect, focus, and collaborate. Join hundreds of customers like VML, who are using the new chat and channels experience as part of the Teams private preview program.

Your work isn’t limited to just a desktop, so we’re excited to bring the new chat and channels experience to all devices for seamless productivity. This is coming to desktop, mobile, iOS, and Android, ensuring you can stay connected and efficient wherever you are.

We’re just getting started, and we’re committed to making Teams more streamlined and simpler with enhancements like threaded conversations. We’re beginning to test threaded conversations with customers this quarter and will expand testing in early 2025, with broad availability expected in mid-2025.

To learn more and deep dive into the full list of features, visit the Tech Community blog and the new Microsoft Adoption page. Customers with access to Teams public preview will be able to try out the new interface starting in November 2024. To activate, choose “Get started” when you see the welcome screen for the new chat and channels experience.

For the latest research insights on the future of work and generative AI, visit WorkLab.