Microsoft Teams is taking away one of Zoom's best features, the ability to display 49 video call participants on one screen Recently, Teams was updated to allow a 3x3 grid to display 9 call participants at once And now it appears that Microsoft is planning to expand this even further to display a grid of 49 people [The Microsoft Teams roadmap includes increasing the number of people that can be displayed during a Teams video call to 49 The company has not disclosed when this new feature will be available

Microsoft Teams is clearly trying to gain ground against Zoom, which tops our list of best video chat apps During the pandemic, Zoom became the staple video conferencing service for virtual work meetings, happy hours, Zoom karaoke, and even weddings in April, Zoom had a combined total of 300 million paid and free users per day compared to Microsoft's 75 million users per day Zoom reported 300 million users per day for its paid and free services combined, compared to Microsoft's 75 million users per day

In response to Zoom's explosive popularity, Microsoft and others are launching or upgrading their video calling products; Skype (owned by Microsoft) recently expanded its on-screen participants to nine and developed a response to Zoom's background; Google Meet is now free for everyone (not just G-Suite customers) and has been integrated into Gmail; Facebook has launched Messenger Rooms, which allows 50-person video calls; and Microsoft has launched a new video calling service, Messenger Rooms

Microsoft Teams also upgraded its product to make it more competitive In addition to the recent expansion of on-screen participants, Teams launched real-time noise suppression to reduce background noise and custom backgrounds like Zoom In addition, the company continues to offer special support to high-profile clients, such as the National Football League, which used Teams to run the 2020 draft