A new view designed to highlight a specific speaker in Microsoft Teams calls looks to help the platform gear up to take on the likes of Zoom and Google Meet.
Video conferencing platforms were all the rage when workers were forced to pack their backs and work from home. Despite many employees now returning to the office, such tools have remained a staple part of our day-to-day lives, to the point that companies are regularly adding new features to stay on top of the game.
Microsoft Teams now hopes it can prevent people from exploring other options by offering up yet another view for video callers.
Microsoft Teams speaker view
In an entry on the company’s Microsoft 365 roadmap (opens in new tab), the company details that the speaker view “highlights the active speaker while still showing the rest of the participants in the meeting.” It’s unclear how many other participants can remain visible when the speaker view is engaged.
Much like the speaker view on other video calling platforms, it’s likely that the primary view will dynamically adapt to whoever is currently speaking.
End users will be able to toggle this new view type from the view switcher that already enables other screen layouts.
The plans suggest that the new feature will first be available in web and desktop instances, indicating that the large screen format is a key priority for the company.
With this in mind, it’s possible that mobile devices may soon get the update, too, for those who prefer to work on the go.
General availability is set for March 2023, meaning that if you’ve previously been considering switching to something like Google Meet for its speaker view, you may want to hold off for a few weeks yet.
