The long-awaited Microsoft Teams 2.0 is generally available today. Microsoft has redeveloped Teams from the ground up to make the communication platform faster and more economical.

The new Microsoft Teams app is actually no longer “new”, as the preview version has been available since the end of March. Microsoft announces general availability, including for educational accounts, in a blog. It’s not just an update to the Teams platform; The business communication app was developed from the ground up. We discuss what’s new with Microsoft Teams “2.0”.

WebView 2

So the biggest change is happening behind the scenes. The old Teams platform was built on Electron. This framework is also used by Slack and Discord, among others, but is not the cheapest platform. Electron shares the Chromium engine with many browsers, but creates its own version of the browser files that must also be stored on your computer.

The new platform uses React, a framework that runs on the WebView 2 engine, which Microsoft also uses for Edge. This allows the framework to use the same browser files, eliminating the need to create copies. The new Teams app will therefore use significantly less PC performance. The preview version used up to fifty percent less memory and was twice as fast as the old platform.

New look and new features

There are also visible innovations in the new Teams app. Teams has a cleaner look that you can customize to your taste through Settings. Scrolling through your chat messages is smoother and the search function has also been improved to find older messages more quickly.

The global release also introduces some advanced calling features that we didn’t see in the preview release, such as: B. Queues and number lookup, breakout rooms in meetings and a 7×7 video grid. Now, external party (non-Microsoft) and line of business (LOB) applications also work, as well as smoother cross-communication between different tenants, which is useful for large organizations.

co-pilot

Microsoft also wants to introduce its Copilot in the new Teams app. This is an AI assistant that can, among other things, summarize chat conversations or Teams meetings for you. Copilot knows who said what and what people agree or disagree on during conversations. After each video meeting, Copilot lists the most important action points for the next meeting. Copilot can also filter targeted information from documents, presentations, emails, calendar invitations and notes and bundle it for you.

Copilot is not yet one of the available apps, but Microsoft will not begin rolling out its Copilot for 365 applications until November. There is also no guarantee that the assistant will be available to us immediately. Windows Copilot has not yet been “officially” launched in Europe, but there is a workaround to use the tool.

From old to new

Since the end of March, you have been able to switch to the new version using the slider at the top left of the Teams app. The new version appears as a separate icon in the taskbar. Microsoft still offers you the option to switch back to the old version. Soon all users will be permanently switched to the new version. Government customers and VDI users can test the preview starting today.