Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it is making a "major" compliance change in Teams, which will allow AI-powered meeting recaps to be generated without retaining any transcript or recording of a meeting. This follows news about a bunch of upgrades that the popular online communication platform received recently and some that it is expected to get soon. Now, Microsoft has revealed that Teams is getting a crucial new feature that has surprisingly been missing so far.
In an update to its public Microsoft 365 Roadmap today, the company has revealed that customers will soon be able to test their microphone and speaker before they join a meeting. This won"t be a rudimentary test either. In fact, you"ll be able to record a short audio clip and then hear it back. Together, both these flows will help you ensure that your correct input and output hardware is selected and that it is working without issues.
While we don"t have an idea about the interface for this hardware test yet, we do know that it will be included in the pre-join screen for each meeting. Microsoft will likely update the existing pre-join interface to include a control for this as well.
Although this may sound like an insignificant change to some, it will certainly facilitate those working in remote or hybrid setups. I, personally, have joined many meetings where a precious few minutes at the start are wasted just because someone is connected to the wrong I/O hardware without realizing, or their mic is too far away, or their hardware is faulty, or a combination of the above.
As such, it"s great to see that Microsoft realizes that it can make its customers more productive by enabling them to test their hardware ahead of joining a meeting, guaranteeing that they will be able to listen to others and convey their thoughts without issues. This feature is landing on Teams next month on Windows and macOS.