About a year ago, in the midst of the innovation rollout for teleworking, Microsoft announced a new feature for Teams meetings: Together Mode. When this feature is activated during a meeting, the app takes - through Artificial Intelligence - the images of the attendees and inserts them into a virtual environment. In this virtual auditorium, people feel like they are at the same table and it greatly helps to pick up and interpret the non-verbal communication cues that are so important during a meeting or brainstorming session.
Together Mode in Teams was used by the NBA to bring fans together in a previously unheard-of virtual game. To create the sporting and motivational atmosphere typical of these games, they used Teams technology to create an online attendance in which more than 300 people occupied the virtual stands.
Until now, Together Mode was available for meetings of at least 5 participants, but the Redmond company has announced the extensibility of this functionality to smaller meetings, even 2-person meetings. The feature is expected to be enabled for smaller meetings by the end of August.
As has been the case with other new features in Teams, the extension of this functionality seeks greater integration of physical and virtual reality. In addition, it encourages the active participation and understanding of all attendees in the same.
When to use Together Mode
Together Mode helps keep meeting participants focused on the topic. On the other hand, it helps to perceive the audience's reactions to the attendees' comments and speeches. This is useful for conducting meetings where audience reactions and nonverbal cues influence the speech.
It is also very useful when participating in many meetings because it reduces the fatigue caused by them.
