In direct response to the surge in Microsoft Teams usage, the Redmond giant released a plethora of new features last month, including the much-anticipated custom backgrounds for video calls. Microsoft has been prioritizing more resources for Microsoft Teams since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and the company is getting ready to increase the limit of people that can chat in group conversations.
According to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, Microsoft has started rolling out an update for group Teams chats to raise the limit of participates to up to 250 people (via Petri.com). This is a major change from before, where Teams’ previously supported 100 participants. In the Roadmap document, Microsoft noted that the new feature is currently in development, and is gradually rolling out to all tenants through May:
Sometimes you need to kick off a big project chat with a large group, or organize an ad-hoc discussion with staff at an event, but it is unnecessary to start a new team; perhaps you don’t all work together on a regular basis, or maybe you need a communication channel with a large group of people at an event. Group chats will be able to accommodate up to 250 users.
The new functionality seems to be a welcome addition for large companies and educational institutions, though on the other hand, the company has yet to increase the maximum capability for calls and allow admins to limit the number of participants in a chat group. Apparently, Microsoft isn’t ready to implement this highly anticipated functionality (at least for now), neither did the company provide a firm ETA for its release.
Anyways, it is good to see Microsoft’s recent moves to improve its team collaboration hub. Do you think that the new group chat participants limit will provide businesses more freedom to collaborate? Let us know in the comments down below.
