The power of AI could soon be coming to all your Microsoft Teams calls as the company prepares a major new update.
A (rather short) piece of news entry in the official Microsoft 365 roadmap has shed some light on the role the company’s Copilot assistant will play in Microsoft Teams, as AI continues to play a growing role across its product portfolio.
Above all, Copilot in Microsoft Teams will try to provide a productivity and efficiency boost to employees around the world, cutting through the tedious administrative and organizational tasks that can clog up a working day and hopefully freeing up more time for the tasks that really matter .
Co-pilot in Microsoft Teams
“Copilot in Microsoft Teams helps users stay organized and on top of all their information in chat, meetings, and calls,” reads the update message, which doesn’t offer much more for now.
Microsoft says Teams users will be able to ask Copilot “any question” – presumably mainly about their work and contacts, where the answers will allow them to “discover insights”.
If users can’t think of a specific question, Copilot will present them with a set of suggested prompts, most likely focusing on their recent meetings, most used files, or the contacts they chat with most, with users also able to ask a question. “free text question” or your own creation.
Perhaps the most interesting detail is that the rollout of Copilot in Microsoft Teams will begin within weeks, with an expected start date of “November 2023”. When it’s released, it will be available to Teams users on Windows desktop and web, Mac, Android, and iOS.
The news is the latest part of Copilot’s gradual rollout across the Microsoft 365 software suite, as the company looks to ensure AI plays a key role in its work in the future.
The company also recently unveiled the “all-new” Microsoft Teams app, which promises “a new era” for the videoconferencing service.
The upgraded app will run up to twice as fast and use up to 50% less memory and disk space than classic Teams, but also features Copilot, which the company says can analyze chats and calls to provide short summaries of all the important points, action items and decisions, which can then be shared and collaborated on in Teams.
Using Microsoft Graph, Copilot can also search your documents, presentations, emails, calendar invitations, notes, and contacts to find exactly the information you need and bring it together in one place.