What you need to know
- Microsoft is preparing to increase the number of Teams meeting participants you can see on screen at once to nine.
- The current limit is four participants on screen at once.
- Microsoft says it is working to increase the limit even more in the future.
Microsoft Teams is about to address one of the biggest pain points in video calls. Currently, you're limited to viewing four meeting participants on screen at a time, regardless of how many people are in the meeting. By the end of April, Microsoft plans to increase this limit to nine.
Additionally, Microsoft says it is working on increasing that limit even further. "We will start rolling out our first update to view nine participants simultaneously by the end of April," a Microsoft Teams engineer said on the Teams UserVoice page. "In parallel we are continuing work to increase this limit even further. Stay tuned!"
We heard you! We're increasing the number of participants who can be viewed simultaneously on the #MicrosoftTeams meeting stage to 9. Rolling out soon. pic.twitter.com/LsRbsqHzkqWe heard you! We're increasing the number of participants who can be viewed simultaneously on the #MicrosoftTeams meeting stage to 9. Rolling out soon. pic.twitter.com/LsRbsqHzkq— Microsoft Teams (@MicrosoftTeams) April 13, 2020April 13, 2020
In addition to the bump to meeting participants you can view simultaneously, Microsoft says that the custom backgrounds feature, which was announced last week, is rolling out to the public this week. Additionally, Teams is expected to get multi-window chat support by the end of April.
As more people are working from home, Teams has seen a surge to 44 million daily users as of mid-March. It's likely we'll see Microsoft continue to address furhter pain points as more people become familiar with Teams in the coming weeks and months.
