News

Microsoft's AI-Driven Teams Premium Now Live

• By Chris Paoli
• February 02, 2023

Microsoft Teams Premium, which features OpenAI technology, is now available.   

The new service will incorporate OpenAI's ChatGTP to provide a new feature called Intelligent Recap, to help simplify the meeting experience. Here's some of what Intelligent Recap will offer:

• AI-generated notes will summarize and capture the main points of a meeting, helping users focus on the meeting itself, and not on taking notes. It will also generate follow-up tasks for users based on the meeting discussion.
• AI-generated chapters will automatically take meeting notes and divide them so that users can jump to the content they're looking for. Microsoft said this should save users time by avoiding searching for pertinent content through a whole meeting transcript.
• Personalized timeline markers will highlight meeting notes that is relevant to the specific user. One example is that if a user jumps out of a meeting, a note of what they missed will be displayed on their personal timeline.
• Speaker timeline markers will further divide meeting notes by who is speaking or presenting.
• Live translations will provide AI-powered translations and captions for a meeting in real time, allowing users of different languages to interact.

As of Wednesday's launch, AI-generated chapters, personalized timeline markers and live translations are available with Microsoft's newest Teams offering. The company said that AI-generated notes and speaker timeline markers will be making its way into the service over the next few months.

Teams Premium also includes meeting-based customizations to users, including meetings branded with specific colors or company logos, custom organizational backgrounds, and meeting templates -- which will allow IT to control Teams meetings settings based on the type of meeting event it is.

On the security side, Microsoft said that Teams Premium will also offer advanced meeting protection for confidential communications. This includes limiting recording capabilities, meeting watermarking and the ability to apply end-to-end encryption options.

Finally, Microsoft has added Virtual Appointments to its new premium Teams offering. It will allow for users to connect with others who are not in their organization's Teams ecosystem through virtual lobby rooms. Invitations to external individuals can be sent through text or email, and the use of the Teams app won't be needed to participate in the lobby room.  

The new subscription service will cost $7 per month per user until June. After June the price will jump up to $10 per user.