A fun new feature has been added to Microsoft Teams that makes everyday meetings more exciting than just video calls

The new feature was announced today at Microsoft's Ignite 2020 developer event and is detailed in a Microsoft blog post But the headline here is that square columns, including your colleagues, will become more interesting and dynamic to see and interact with once these updates are rolled out

The most visually interesting change is the new "Together Mode" scene This allows users to transfer the image from their webcam to a more normal environment, such as a coffee shop, conference room, or lecture hall

Related is the ability to customize the layout of the meeting Microsoft gives the example of placing the camera image in front of the presentation slides to allow for a more personal presentation of the content than audio alone

Meetings can also be divided into subgroups called "breakout rooms," to use Microsoft's terminology All participants can be kept on one call and discussed in separate teams, which can then be called back when the time is up

A useful new feature for those who were unable to attend the meeting is "Meeting Recap," which brings together recordings, transcripts, chat messages, and shared files in one place to help people catch up or remember what they need to do Recap"

As for meeting capacity, Teams will soon be able to support up to 1,000 users, with 20,000 allowed for view-only gatherings For comparison, Zoom will only offer 1,000 users if the "Large Meeting" add-on is specifically purchased, otherwise it will remain at 500 users; Google Meet will only allow up to 250 people in a regular meeting, but live streaming will allow up to up to 100,000 participants

Also on the horizon is the integration of more third-party apps, first announced earlier this year The first 20 approved by Microsoft will be released in October and promise to add more functionality to the conference, which until now has been all about screen sharing