Microsoft is rolling out chats and channels to add to the Microsoft Teams communications app. The company announced that the public preview of these features will be available in November. While the threaded conversations will be introduced in mid-year of 2025.
“We’ve redesigned the chat and channels experience to simplify your digital workspace by bringing chats, teams, and channels into one place under Chat,” explains Jeff Teper, president of collaborative apps and platforms at Microsoft. “This integrates both chat and channels into your critical workflows, making it easier to access, triage, and organize your conversations.”
Following the details of the chats and channels section, you will switch between chats and channels in just one click without involving in different tabs and searches. The new feature allows chats can be one-on-one or in a group and chat with yourself. This will help you to send or transfer data/media to yourself easily. You can customize chats with formatting like bold or underlined including emojis, GIFs, and stickers.
Moreover, channels are useful in teamwork and group communications. Each team has named a channel for a relevant project, group, and feature. Teams can customize channels based on standard, private, or shared channels. You can name your channel uniquely which can highlight the purpose of making a channel.
The most favorite feature is pinned up. You can also pin your chats and channels on top with whom you frequently connect. Another feature is @mentions, it notify you when someone mentions your name in chats and channels. It will be beneficial to reply quickly the important messages.
However, the latest features are available for both desktop and mobile platforms. It is expected that Microsoft will be planning to introduce more features to enhance the user and team members’ experience in the coming year.
