Microsoft Teams launched as part of the Microsoft 365 suite in 2017, with a free-to-use version available in 2018, and has since developed into a key collaboration platform that is supporting organisations across every industry as the workplace continues to evolve.
In the first quarter of 2024, the total number of active Teams users worldwide hit 320 million per month and continues to grow. According to Ilya Bukshteyn, vice president of Microsoft Teams calling, devices and premium experiences, this rapid growth is “a testament to the value customers find in using Teams for communications and collaboration”.
Bukshteyn attributes the platform’s success to a variety of features, including everything from the built-in chat and call functionalities to the meeting scheduling and collaborative tools. “Teams is a one-stop shop for all your communication and productivity needs,” he says.
Another benefit is that Teams integrates with other Microsoft 365 applications, allowing users to access and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more without leaving the platform.
To ensure users consistently get the most out of their Teams experience, Microsoft works to continuously update the platform with new capabilities that boost productivity and make collaboration more efficient. In particular, the introduction of AI capabilities has been a “game-changer”, according to Bukshteyn.
One of the key AI features in Teams is the new Interpreter agent, which was revealed at Microsoft Ignite 2024 and provides real-time interpretation in up to nine languages. This enables meeting participants to speak and listen in the language of their choice for a more inclusive experience.
Other examples include the Intelligent Recap feature, which generates AI-generated summaries of meetings, and IntelliFrame, which provides optimised views of the meeting room to external participants. IntelliFrame also offers a speaker recognition feature, which ensures that quotes from people speaking in the room are correctly attributed in Intelligent Recap summaries, meeting transcripts and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
As with any new product, Microsoft employees like Bukshteyn try out new tools and features themselves to ensure they will provide value for customers.
“One feature I now rely on every day is background noise suppression and voice isolation,” he says. “I split my work time between the office and home, and when I’m working from home, I trust those features to block out any kind of background noise which might be distracting.”
Applications for every industry
The versatility of Teams means that different teams in different organisations in any industry can leverage the platform in a way that best suits their specific needs.
Companies, for example, can use Teams Rooms and Places to help employees better coordinate their in-office time. The tool provides hybrid employees with suggestions on when to come into the office based on coworker status, daily meetings and space availability, providing a more inclusive experience and optimising their time.
“Today’s workplace requires flexibility and collaboration,” says Bukshteyn. “Whether an organisation offers flexible working to their employees, or regularly communicates with external entities, hybrid work is a staple of today’s work environment. We see teams make the most of our workplace tools when they can get the most out of their in-person connection time and have seamless communication experiences, regardless of their location.”
Meanwhile, frontline workers can use Teams Phone to stay connected with their coworkers and make calls over the internet or through a traditional phone network. The solution includes traditional telephone features like voicemail, call forwarding and speed dial but also brings in new capabilities from Teams, such as intelligent call recaps.
Meanwhile, customer service agents in call centres can use tools such as the Queues application for Teams, which helps organisations to manage call queues and automatic attendants within Teams. It also provides users with real-time metrics such as average wait time so supervisors can analyse trends and performance.
In early 2024, Turkish supermarket chain Migros introduced Teams and Teams Phone to 6,300 users across 3,300 stores. The brand wanted to improve communication between employees and locations and deliver training materials easily.
The migration to Teams allowed Migros to eliminate physical and wireless phones in large areas such as warehouses, which improved efficiency and reduced costs by 30 per cent.
The move also improved frontline employee productivity, with a reported 15 per cent time saved on routine tasks. Administrative staff also benefited from the shift due to their newfound ability to manage domestic and international calls via Teams.
Power-up through partnership
To ensure it can fulfil the requirements of different organisations and consistently deliver an efficient Teams experience, Microsoft works with key partners to provide a range of hardware and software solutions that can be integrated with, or added on to, the platform. For instance, organisations that require hardware such as audiovisual devices and displays or room-booking panels can obtain these from certified partners like Crestron, Epos, Jabra and Shure.
“We work hard with industry leaders that build devices designed to meet stringent requirements in order to be certified for Teams,” says Bukshteyn. “This certification programme sets a high standard to assure customers that these devices offer excellent audio and video quality, as well as a seamless integration with Teams.”
Meanwhile, partners such as CallCabinet, CallTower, Jamf, Spectralink and Tollring offer software solutions that support organisations with analytics, device management, regulatory compliance and more.
“On the software side, Teams offers a powerful platform that allows our rich ecosystem of independent software vendors to build solutions that can enhance the platform,” says Bukshteyn. “These solutions focus on high-end contact centres, compliance recording and more, allowing customers to meet their business communication needs. Microsoft provides a certification programme in this area too.”
Microsoft also works with its partners to discover potential use cases for Teams and test new features that can improve efficiency. For example, as part of its collaborative relationship with Microsoft, the EY Global Tax team had the opportunity to preview Copilot in its early stages to see how it could apply generative AI to its solutions. EY Global Tax collaborated with Microsoft to build a proof of concept for a Teams plugin that allows users to access data, generate reports and discover analytics through natural language queries.
The EY Global Tax team expects to see time-saving benefits from the tool. For example, if an employee is in a meeting and a question comes up, they can ask Copilot and receive an answer immediately, rather than having to leave Teams and access the data elsewhere.
Once the EY Global Tax team has proven the value of the tool and Copilot within its organisation, it will start demonstrating to its clients how they can use the technology to manage their own internal data.
A collaborative future
As the world of work continues to evolve and organisations discover new uses for tools such as AI, Bukshteyn predicts that Teams has an “incredibly promising” future.
“Over the next year we anticipate significant advancements in Teams to further enhance its capabilities and the overall user experience,” he says. “One of the key priorities of focus will be the integration of AI across all areas, from meetings to chat to calls.”
Furthermore, with over one million Teams Rooms licences already established, Microsoft aims to continue to support the evolving needs of modern workplaces by enhancing capabilities in a variety of spaces such as formal meeting rooms, hot desks and ‘bring your own device’ spaces.
The new Windows 365 Link, which will be available from April 2025, is one example. The cloud PC solution will allow employees to connect to their Windows 365 desktop wherever they have access to a monitor, with high-fidelity support for Teams to provide hybrid and remote work environments.
In addition, Microsoft will continue to focus on use-case specific capabilities to enhance the Teams experience for different industries and business needs.
“While Teams is often thought of as a tool mostly for collaboration, we’re excited to find ways to expand use cases for the platform by building deeper integrations into core business workflows,” says Bukshteyn. “We are committed to investing in the capabilities, technologies and partnerships to help our customers succeed in their digital transformation journeys.”
Partner perspectives
We asked a selection of Microsoft partners how their solutions are enhancing the impact of Microsoft Teams in the workplace.
“Anywhere365’s unique advantage is that it integrates the Teams platform with previously isolated systems, like customer relationship management and IT service management, and enhances it with AI and advanced dialogue management capabilities. This enables anyone in the organisation to leverage these tools, making Teams the best platform to deliver a fully-fledged customer engagement solution,” said Stoyan Stoitsev, product manager at Anywhere365.
“At CallTower, we enhance Teams’ impact in the workplace by integrating flexibility, productivity and resiliency into our solutions. For example, we improve customer service with solutions like Five9, Solgari and Webex Contact Center, which are seamlessly integrated with Teams for hybrid workers,” said Paul Holden, vice president of sales, EMEA, at CallTower.
“DTEN solutions for Teams Rooms are cleverly designed to boost meeting engagement and productivity with professional quality 4K camera, microphone, speaker and display systems. DTEN systems can be set up in minutes, with simple, easy-to-use controls and built-in Teams Rooms software. Users can simply tap the screen to launch professional AI-driven Teams meetings,” said Hadar Carmel, general manager, EMEA sales, at DTEN.
“Miro’s plugin for Copilot enhances Teams collaboration with AI-driven features like keyword, date and title searches across all Miro boards. Users can drive asynchronous productivity with embedded boards into Teams channels and get real-time notifications on board activity. This integration streamlines workflows, boosts collaboration and helps teams make data-driven decisions more efficiently,” said Swarna Krishnaswamy, group product manager, ecosystem, at Miro.
“Spectralink IP-DECT Servers natively integrate with Teams to enable enterprise deskless workers to use the same calling platform as their office-based colleagues for smoother communications and a more connected and informed workforce S Series DECT handsets feature background noise cancellation to ensure clear Teams calls even in noisy environments such as factories and retail stores,” said Paul Rowe, senior product manager at Spectralink.
Read the full feature, including contributions from CallCabinet, CentrePal, Crestron, Jabra, Jamf, Lenovo, Q-SYS, Shure and Tollring, in the Winter 2024 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.