Microsoft is set to retire the Designer bot and Designer banners in Microsoft Teams fully by Friday, February 27, after beginning the phase out in mid-January. This transition marks a big shift in how users will access image generation tools within the platform as Microsoft seeks to consolidate creative features.
Once fully deprecated, it will be impossible for users to install the standalone Designer bot in chats or create channel announcement banners via the old interface. Microsoft is phasing these out to focus on a single toolset for AI content creation, namely Copilot in Teams, which will be a direct replacement for creative tasks previously handled by the Designer bot.
Since the phaseout started in mid-January, access to the Designer bot and the banner creation tool have been progressively phased out for all global users. By now, just a few people should have the feature and tomorrow it will be completely gone.
In terms of what admins should do to prepare, Microsoft notes that there is no need for backend configuration changes or admin adjustments to allow this deprecation to go ahead, it’ll all be handled automatically. What admins should do, however, is update internal training materials and help desk documentation to reduce user confusion after the change.
This deprecation comes against the backdrop of Microsoft expanding the functionality of Copilot in Teams. The Redmond giant is trying to turn Copilot in Teams into a more robust and versatile replacement for earlier standalone bots. After Microsoft completes this goal, users will be able to get any number of tasks done in one place instead of many places, making things faster and simpler.
You can learn more about this change in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center under message ID MC1197104.