Microsoft, with an aim to further improve the quality of voice calls on Teams, has announced new AI-based features like Echo Cancellation, improvements to room acoustics, and more. These come in addition to the recent background noise suppression feature for Teams. Have a look at the new Teams features.
New Microsoft Teams Features Introduced
The Echo Cancellation feature will eliminate the echo effect created usually when a person has the mic too close to the speaker. With the use of AI, Teams will be able to recognize the difference between sound from a speaker and the user’s voice for echo cancellation. Microsoft says that this feature will work without suppressing speech or interrupting multiple people from speaking at the same time.
The ‘De-reverberation’ feature also uses AI and is meant to make the audio output clearer as if the person is ‘speaking into a close-range microphone.’ This is for situations when a person’s voice can sound shallow due to the poor room acoustics.
Another feature, which Microsoft calls ‘Interruptibility’ will allow for clearer communication in situations when two people speak at the same time. It is said that full-duplex (two-way) transmission of audio (the ability to speak and listen simultaneously) can usually cause unwanted audio or echo, especially when a headset is not used. Microsoft aims to sort this issue using another AI model, which has been trained with 30,000 hours of speech samples to keep the conversation flow smooth.
Currently, these are the only new feature Microsoft Teams is getting. Have a look at how these features will work.
It is also revealed that the background noise suppression feature will soon reach Teams Android and web clients. This feature to cut the background noise recently became a default feature on Windows, Mac, and iOS Teams versions.
All these voice-focused features have been introduced in addition to various features meant to improve the video quality on Teams. The list includes real-time screen optimization adjustments when sharing content with others on a call and brightness and focus filters for calls, among others. So which new Microsoft Teams feature do you like? Let us know in the comments below.
