Microsoft to retire ‘Together Mode,’ its virtual meeting space for Teams

Microsoft plans to retire “Together Mode” in Teams next month and is encouraging users to access its Gallery view for video calls instead. 

The company launched Together Mode in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, as Teams usage rocketed and businesses sought ways to connect staff when physical offices closed due to social distancing policies. 

Together Mode was positioned as a “shared virtual space” to enhance the feeling of connection while on a video call, with participants’ video feed cropped and placed in virtual scenes such as a conference room, coffee shop, or amphitheater. Microsoft claimed that Together Mode users were less likely to experience video meeting fatigue — a common complaint among remote workers as tools such as Teams and Zoom became the norm for office collaboration.

The feature could be seen as part of a wider push for more engaging and immersive meeting experiences, a move that extended to Microsoft’s metaverse for work concept, with its Mesh 3D meeting platform.

Microsoft retired Mesh last December (though an app for immersive events is still available with certain Teams subscriptions), and now Together Mode faces the same fate. 

Together Mode will no longer be available as of June 30, a move that will “simplify the meeting experience” for users, said Katarina Tranker, Teams product manager, in a Monday blog post. At this point, the feature will be removed as an option from the View menu in Teams meetings, with the Gallery view the primary layout for group meetings. 

“Today, the core need Together mode was designed to support, namely seeing the people who matter in a meeting, can now be fully met by the modern Gallery view, which can display up to 49 participants at once,” said Tranker.

The move to a single layout means fewer clicks for users and enables the product development team to move quicker to add new features, Microsoft said, while the Gallery is also less demanding on devices.Microsoft to retire ‘Together Mode,’ its virtual meeting space for Teams – ComputerworldRead More