Microsoft has revealed the features that will remain exclusive to the upcoming Microsoft Teams Premium - a more expensive subscription for its flagship collaboration platform.
The tech giant first revealed plans for Teams Premium in October 2022, and since mid-December, the product has been available for preview as a “limited trial for commercial customers”.
Now, Microsoft has revealed what features will only be available on the more expensive subscription tier. They will remain accessible for 30 days after Premium's launch to all users but after that will be close doff only to Premium users.
Speaking in October, Microsoft Teams VP Nicole Herskowitz said the Teams Premium push is part of a broader strategy to deliver “more personalised, intelligent, and secure” meetings and improve synergy across products.
“Built on the familiar, all-in-one collaboration experience of Microsoft Teams, this new offering makes every meeting from one-on-ones to large meetings, to virtual appointments to webinars more personalised, intelligent, and secure,” she said.
“Unlike the disconnected experience and costs of multiple point products or add-ons, with Teams Premium you get everything you need for just one low price.”
Teams Premium features – what can customers expect?
According to Microsoft, the Teams Premium platform will provide users with a raft of intuitive new tools and features.
But be warned, this will see “some Teams features” move from the regular licence to the new product, meaning that users will likely be nudged towards upgrading to access certain functionalities.
AI-supported productivity
A key feature highlighted by Microsoft includes the ability for organisations to extend their “brand and company culture across meetings” with customised branding and backgrounds, as well as more customisable Together mode scenes.
The premium platform will also make use of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve productivity in meetings.
Features benefitting from AI will include real-time translation for captions in up to 40 spoken languages, intelligent recap features that offer “smarter recordings”, and auto-generated chapters for meetings.
“Intelligent recap uses AI to suggest action items and owners so that follow-ups are not missed,” Microsoft said. “It’s like having a virtual assistant attend every meeting.”
Intelligent recap works by capturing recordings from a meeting where a user’s name was mentioned, a screen was shared or when a specific user left a meeting early.
Better webinar experiences
Webinar capabilities will be granted a major boost as part of the Teams Premium upgrade, allowing users “streamline event workflows” with the inclusion of manual approval for registrants and the creation of waiting lists.
This will also see the launch of a virtual ‘green room’ for events where presenters and participants can meet before a webinar goes live.
Webinar admins will also have greater control over shared content and what participants can see on screen.
Advanced meeting protection
Teams Premium users will now be able to apply “advanced” meeting protections such as watermarks and sensitivity labels for meetings.
The latter of these features, Microsoft revealed, will prevent copying and pasting of meeting chat text to improve security. Similarly, Microsoft 365 E5 customers can use existing Microsoft Purview Information Protection tools to automatically apply labels to relevant meetings.
End-to-end encryption for meetings containing more than 50 users will also be made available, the firm revealed.
Virtual appointment improvements
Microsoft’s virtual appointments feature, which it views as a key tool for businesses engaging with clients, is also expected to see a number of improvements.
With Teams Premium the tech giant hopes to “facilitate a seamless customer experience” by providing customers with text reminders for meetings and bespoke-branded virtual appointments without downloading the app itself.
Schedulers will also have access to advanced appointment queueing capabilities and a centralised virtual appointment dashboard offering a quick view into schedules, queues, and analytics to monitor and track no-shows and waiting times.
Pricing
Microsoft said the “expected price” for Teams Premium is currently set at $10 per profile each month.
“Official pricing will be shared once Teams Premium is available to the public in February,” the company said.
