Microsoft is tinkering with Teams for a long time, and the company is gearing up to include video conferences in Teams, which will accommodate many participants. When Microsoft is done upgrading its video conferencing abilities, a total of up to 98 people, including a webcam stream, will be able to participate.
Microsoft is adding and developing Teams almost every week, and the newly added functions can be tried out in advance both in the developer preview and in the public preview. In its public review, Microsoft has added the “Gallery View” feature, which displays up to 98 people participating in a video conference on a two-sided 7×7 grid. Previously, a total number of 49 people could join a video conference.
Anyone willing to activate the preview of the new functions added to Microsoft Teams needs to use the context menu next to the profile picture in the top right-hand corner of personal Microsoft accounts, which will enable the user to select the appropriate preview through the info area. This process is applicable to only personal accounts. For company accounts, however, the IT administrators need to activate an updated policy within the Microsoft Teams admin center which will, in turn, grant the employees access to the public test versions.
Moreover, the company is also working on developing simplified chat bubbles. These bubbles should appear as a preview in the upper area of the screen, somewhat similar to receiving notifications on a smartphone. This feature is currently being developed and as such has not been rolled out yet. The chat-bubble feature might get launched in late June or July.
The test version of the newly added feature of video conferencing where up to 98 people can participate has been rolled out for both Windows 10 and Apple macOS.
