Microsoft Teams Introduces More Free Tools
Microsoft Teams is getting yet another AI revamp with Designer, an AI art-generating tool that will enable users to create visual content for presentations, event announcements and invitations, and other digital visual content they can distribute across various channels, including social media.
Microsoft also introduced other non-AI-related Teams updates. Users can now initiate Teams calls from new and existing chats through GroupMe, a free messaging app. The communities feature within Teams, which was only available on mobile, is now available on Windows 11, with Windows 10, macOS, and web compatibility coming soon. Communities in Teams now also allow users to record videos from their mobile devices using filters and markup tools.
In the following days, a new communities discovery feature will roll out, enabling Windows 11 and iOS and Android users to become part of specific communities like freelancing and gaming.
The tool is powered by DALL-E 2, OpenAI’s text-to-image AI technology, the same tech that enables Bing to create images. Designer works with both text and image prompts. Users can customize the generated content further through the drop-down menus and text boxes available within the tool.
Designer is already available as a standalone tool via the web and in the sidebar of Microsoft’s Edge browser. Since its initial launch in October last year, Microsoft has upgraded the tool with new features like animated visuals and caption generation.
Microsoft intends to monetize Designer mainly through Microsoft 365 subscriptions for both its Personal and Family products. The company hasn’t disclosed prices yet but promised a free version with limited features.
As Microsoft Teams’ popularity soars, going from 145 million to 270 million users in 2022 amid the rise of remote work, Microsoft will upgrade Teams with new features. The tech giant keeps embracing AI across the majority of its products, with its assistant for business apps being one of the most impressive AI novelties so far. The tech giant also promised advanced Designer editing capabilities in the future.
