Microsoft Teams announces new chat and channels experience for all platforms

In a rare moment of sincerity, Microsoft admitted that Teams offers a sub-par experience in comparison with the competition, and decided to remove some key features, which were obsolete and no longer helped users in any way.

Decluttering the app of unnecessary features is an important step toward making Teams a contender in the communication app space.

The next step would be to continue to iterate on already existing features and make them as easy to use as possible. In a recent blog post, Microsoft announced a new chat experience is coming to all platforms Teams is now available on, including desktop, mobile, iOS, and Android.

The new chat experience features mobile-specific settings, such as the option to choose between viewing messages organized by sections or by most recent. Since the new experience has been specifically designed for different screen sizes, it will make it easier for mobile users to read and respond to messages while on the go.More importantly, Microsoft has decided to bring chats, teams, and channels into one place under Chat. This will allow users to navigate and prioritize all their conversations without having to switch contexts.

Those who preferred the previous layout can keep chat and channels separate during the onboarding process that pops up when Teams is launched for the first time after the update. This can also be done at any time later.

Another useful feature added to Teams is the addition of new filters like “Unread,” “Chat,” “Channels,” “Meetings,” and “Muted.” Now, whenever you’re looking for a specific type of conversation, like channels, you’ll be able to select the relevant filter to further narrow your search and locate the most relevant results.

Also, the new chat and channels experience includes a new favorites section, which is available for everyone by default. You’ll find all your pinned chats and channels from previous experience in this section.

Besides that, Teams takes advantage of new custom sections where users can group together all their relevant conversations on a certain topic, be it in chats, channels, meetings, Teams bots or AI agents. You can have up to 50 sections and 50 items per section in Teams.

According to Microsoft, the new chat and channels experience is coming to public preview in November to desktop, mobile, iOS, and Android, so keep an eye out for a consistent update next month.