Microsoft launches Teams Premium with OpenAI features

Microsoft Teams Premium now comes with features powered by OpenAI's GPT-3.5 AI language model. The new premium tier of Microsoft Teams includes a smart summary feature that automatically generates meeting notes, tasks, and highlights thanks to GPT-3.5, along with branded meetings, custom meeting templates, and features like watermarks to better protect the content of the meetings.

Smart Summary is the big new addition to Microsoft Teams Premium, and it may tempt users to pay the introductory price of $7 per month per user ($10 per month starting June 30) to get an idea of how useful it is. What will it be? Smart Recap uses the OpenAI GPT-3.5 model to generate meeting notes and highlights, even if you weren't present at a meeting.

It makes catching up much easier when meetings are held at difficult times, or employees are in different time zones or out of the office. Notes, citations, and a full transcript are available, with each speaker's contributions highlighted in an ordered chronology of topics and chapters. If a colleague mentions you in a meeting, you'll get custom timeline bookmarks to quickly see what was shared and discussed. While most of the Smart Summarization features are available today, Microsoft says some won't arrive until Q2 2023.

Microsoft is also taking some features from Teams and making them Premium only. Live translated subtitles, custom-arranged Together mode scenes, and a host of virtual dating features will now be available only for Premium. Live translated captions will be available during a "60-day grace period" for existing Microsoft Teams users, and virtual dating features will only be available for 30 days. The addition of the OpenAI GPT-3.5 model to Microsoft Teams Premium comes just days after Microsoft expanded its partnership with OpenAI in a "multi-million dollar investment."

Microsoft Teams Premium also includes webinars so companies can host events with registration waitlists, customizable start and end times, and virtual green rooms. Microsoft launched a 30-day trial of Teams Premium in December to preview the features available today. Now that the subscription is generally available to all businesses, Microsoft Teams Premium is available at an introductory price of $7 per month per user until June 30, when it returns to the standard price of $10 per user per month.

Microsoft is rumoured to be preparing to bring OpenAI technology to Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook and reportedly wants to add the ChatGPT AI chatbot to Bing.