Microsoft Teams App on Windows 11 Adds New Features for Consumers
- Laurent Giret
- Jun 02, 2023
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The built-in Microsoft Teams app on Windows 11 that only supports personal Microsoft accounts is adding new features for consumers. On the social front, the Discord-like communities that previously launched on the Teams mobile apps are now available on the desktop.
“On Windows 11, community owners can create communities from scratch, share and invite members, create and host events, moderate content with critical trust and safety features, and get notified about all important activities,” Microsoft explained yesterday.
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The company is also introducing more granular controls for community owners: They can now make their community public and discoverable within the Teams for consumers experience. Owners can also approve or reject requests to join their community and share these controls with other members. Lastly, Microsoft has introduced a new poll feature powered by Microsoft Forms.
If Teams communities are currently only available on the Teams app for Windows 11, iOS, and Android, Microsoft is planning to support them on the Teams app for Windows 10, macOS, and the Teams web app soon. There’s a long way to go before Teams communities become as popular as Discord servers, but Microsoft said that it already has big organizations on board such as the American Youth Soccer Organization and StartupGrind, the “largest startup community in the world.”
The Microsoft Teams app on Windows 11 is also adding support for Microsoft Designer, the company’s new AI-powered graphic design app. The integration lets users create professional-looking images by either describing what they want to create or starting from an existing image.
One of the most interesting things about the built-in Teams app on Windows 11 is that it’s powered by a faster and more power-efficient architecture. This same Teams 2.0 architecture is currently available in public preview for the Teams app for work and school accounts, and this rebuilt Teams client will become the default experience later this year.