Microsoft Teams: The new streamlined Chat and Channels experience [MC920179]

We’ve been listening to user feedback on the pace of work and the challenges of keeping up with conversations, managing messages scattered across different locations, and triaging quickly. To address this, we’ve streamlined the chats, teams, and channels experience to make it easier for users to stay on top of what matters most.

For more details and screenshots, refer to Microsoft Teams announces out a new chat and channels experience | Microsoft 365 Blog

This message applies to Teams on Windows desktops, Mac desktops, the web, and iOS and Android devices.

This message excludes Education tenants. We will send a future post with an update on the plan for Education tenants.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 415249.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview / Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-November 2024 and expect to complete by mid-November 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early February 2025 and expect to complete by late January 2025.

General Availability (GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out mid-April 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, users have separate Chat and Teams views (apps) with no option to unify these views; custom sections of chats and channels were not possible; and there was no view for collecting all personal mentions in one list across chats and channels.

The new experience brings chat, teams, and channels into one place, in Chat, so users can easily navigate between all conversations without switching between contexts. Users start in the combined Chat view but can opt to keep chat separate from teams and channels like before.

In the Chat view, users will see these sections (in order):

1. Favorites containing any previously pinned chats and channels
2. Chats sorted by most recent
3. Teams and channels, organized in same order as in the Teams view

Also, users can create custom sections to organize projects and topics that can include individual, group, and meeting chats, as well as channels.

Favorites, Chats, and Teams and channels in one list in Teams for Windows:

Favorites, Chats, and Teams and channels in one list in Teams for iOS (also available for Android):

New filters for Unread, Chat, Channels, Meetings and more help users focus on relevant conversation in their list. Filters persist until turned off.

The new @mention view gathers all personal @mentions into one interactive list. Users can quickly access messages with @mentions across chats, channels, and meetings.

Customizing the experience

Users can tailor their chat and channels experience in Teams Settings. Users can choose to keep chat, teams, and channels combined in Chat (default) or switch to separate Chat and Teams views. In the combined Chat view, message previews are off by default to simplify the list. Users can turn on message previews in Settings.

When using the separate Chat and Teams views, users can still use the new filters and the @mentions view to triage and organize topics with custom sections.

Starting the new experience

A self-service guided onboarding flow in Teams will help users discover the new experience and configure it to their preferences. Users who prefer to keep chat and channels separate can easily do so during the onboarding process or later, without IT assistance.

When the new experience is available in your tenant, this screen will display to users:

The Get started button will take users to the new combined chat, teams, and channels experience in Chat, and highlight the location of settings. Users will have the option to defer the new experience up to three times over the course of approximately three days, providing flexibility while also moving an organization to the new experience overall.

This feature is on by default. The new experience has no admin policy. Each user can make choices to optimize for how they work best.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. To help prepare organizations for the new features, product guides for admins and users will be available on the adoption web page The new Microsoft Teams chat and channels experience before rollout begins.

For admins who opt in to emails for recommended Microsoft 365 training, an email for users will summarize the update when released.