Pick your own background on Microsoft Teams

While the custom background feature on Teams was useful, it was limited to a set of images that Microsoft provided to its users. 

Video capabilities, once a nice to have, have become a critical component of collaborative work.When the world moved to remote work earlier this year, Microsoft says Teams customers turned on video in meetings two times more than they did before many of us began working from home full-time. Video calls in Teams also grew by over 1,000 percent in March alone. 

When joining a Teams meeting, you want the focus on you—not that messy heap of laundry behind you. Last year, Microsoft introduced background blur to help everyone preserve privacy and keep their attention on their teammates. The design team also created a collection of preset images that ranged from professional (a modern office) to pretty silly (a cartoonish beach scene).  

Now, Microsoft Teams has expanded on these options so users can customise their background by uploading their own images or choosing one of the collections of backgrounds now available online. 

No need for a green screen, or even a blank wall. Teams uses a highly trained model that differentiates the subject from their background and can impose a custom background over everything else, making it easy and fast to start expressing yourself in all your meetings. 

Additionally, Free version users are now able to schedule meetings and send out invitations in advance. This capability builds upon the existing ability to “Meet Now.” Meeting schedulers have the option of either copying the meeting link to send directly to other participants or sending an invite via Outlook or Google calendar. This much-requested capability is being rolled out to current users, while users who are just signing up now will be able to experience it soon. And right now, there is no time limit on meetings in the free version of Teams. 

To learn more, sign up for the free version of Microsoft Teams today with just your email address here.