Microsoft is adding a new feature to Teams Premium that will allow organisers to prevent participants from copying or forwarding meeting chats.
After the organiser enables this new restriction, chat participants cannot copy chat messages using the menu option or keyboard shortcut. Participants won’t be able to forward or share messages through Outlook either. The new feature aims to mitigate the possibility of data leaks, as stopping copied or forwarded chat messages can better control sensitive information.
The roadmap entry reads:
‘Turn off copying or forwarding of meeting chat’ is a new meeting option that gives meeting organizer the option to disable copying and sharing features on meeting chat messages for participants in order to reduce the risk of data leak.”
Teams is also adding a new Meeting Policy setting in the Teams Admin Center, allowing admins to manage whether users can see or use this meeting chat security feature via the Meeting Options page. Admins can establish the default value for this meeting policy in the Meeting Templates they create.
The feature is scheduled to roll out in general availability in January 2024 and will be available for desktop (for now, at least).
Teams Muting
Another new feature coming to Teams is allowing users to turn their microphone on or off via the microphone icon in the Windows taskbar. With “control your mic state during meetings”, users can also press the Windows logo key + Alt + K to mute or unmute their mic.
These new capabilities should, in theory, make it simpler for users to make sure their mic is on or off as appropriate.
There is an inevitable risk here, however, as placing the mic control in a natural location might unintentionally encourage an accidental click, turning the mic on or off.
The new feature will be exclusive to the new Teams for Windows client, which is currently on offer to desktop users on Windows only.
What Other Teams News Has Happened This Past Week?
It’s been a busy week or so for Teams news.
Last week, EU antitrust regulators sent a questionnaire to Microsoft’s competitors to ask whether shedding Teams from its Office bundle will level the playing field sufficiently in their view.
In 2020, Slack accused Microsoft of anticompetitive practices. With pressure also coming from the European Union (EU), the technology giant agreed to unbundle Teams from Office 365 in the European Economic Area (EEA), which excludes the United Kingdom following Brexit.
Now, with a questionnaire seen by Reuters, the regulators may be in the process of building a case with a view to breaking up the current Microsoft Office solution further.
Additionally, last week, Microsoft 365 celebrated the release of new Teams capabilities and the general availability of Loop on the platform with discounts for both Microsoft 365 subscriptions and Teams Phone bundles.
A 15 percent discount is currently on offer for Microsoft 365 Business Standard for customers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada until December 29, 2023. Teams Phone bundles can also be taken advantage of with up to 33 percent off the normal price between now and January 17, 2024.
The Microsoft productivity and collaboration suite also introduced Microsoft ClipChamp, a video content creation and editing software.
- Regulators Ask Competitors if Unbundling Teams is Enough
- New Teams Features and Loop Goes Live on Microsoft 365
It also became apparent that Microsoft was developing an AI-powered therapist feature for Windows and a smart emotion-based journaling capability for Teams and Microsoft 365.
Microsoft had initially released a patent earlier this month, filed on November 7, indicating it was working on an emotion-focused therapy Copilot for Microsoft and Windows users.
“A method and apparatus for providing emotional care in a session between a user and a conversational agent,” the patent read. “Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot is becoming more and more popular and is being applied in an increasing number of scenarios. The chatbot is designed to simulate people’s conversation and may chat with users by text, speech, image, etc.”
Last week, Microsoft published another patent outlining its development of an AI-powered emotion-centred journaling feature. The patent for the emotional management system suggests it might be integrated with other Microsoft platforms, including Teams and 365 apps, as well as the Windows operating system.
Last week, news broke that the tech giant was ending support for its 365 browser extension.
The extension, which has been downloaded by over 10 million Microsoft users across the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome browsers, offers simple access to Microsoft 365 apps and documents through the web. The extension will be retired on January 15, 2024, and will be removed from the Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome web stores as an extension add-on.
Microsoft didn’t offer a reason why the browser extension was ending. However, it’s possible that it is trying to push users towards other ways of accessing 365 apps, such as the Edge sidebar.
- Read more about Microsoft’s AI well-being plans
- Read more about Microsoft ending the 365 browser extension
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