Microsoft drops Together mode

Microsoft said it will retire Together mode in Teams on June 30, ending the meeting view that places participants into a shared virtual scene. The company said the change is part of a broader effort to simplify meeting layouts and put more engineering work into video quality, stability and performance. Microsoft disclosed the move in a May 14 post on its Microsoft 365 Insider blog by Teams product manager Katarina Tranker. Together mode was introduced in 2020, when remote work drove a rush of new video meeting features across the industry. ### When does Together mode actually go away? June 30 is the date Microsoft gave for Together mode to stop being available in Teams meetings. Tranker wrote that the feature will be removed as part of a “simpler meeting layout experience” aimed at making meetings easier to join and manage across devices and network conditions. Microsoft’s support and marketing pages still describe Together mode as a way to make virtual meetings feel more like in-person gatherings by placing participants in a shared background. Those pages remained online as of May 16, even as the company announced the retirement date. ### What reason did Microsoft give for cutting it? Katarina Tranker said Microsoft is retiring Together mode to “simplify the meeting experience,” “reduce complexity behind the scenes,” and focus engineering investment on improvements that benefit every Teams meeting. (techcommunity.microsoft.com) She named video quality, stability and performance as the target areas. (microsoft.com) The May 14 post did not cite usage figures for Together mode or say how many Teams customers used the feature. It framed the decision around product simplification and core meeting reliability rather than customer demand for a replacement effect. (techcommunity.microsoft.com) ### What was Together mode supposed to do? Microsoft launched Together mode in July 2020 as part of its response to the pandemic-era jump in remote meetings. The feature used AI segmentation to place attendees into a common digital setting, such as an auditorium, instead of showing them in separate boxes. Microsoft said at the time that the layout was designed to make it easier to pick up non-verbal cues and reduce meeting fatigue. (techcommunity.microsoft.com) Microsoft later expanded the feature with custom scenes and layout changes, and it continued to surface in Teams feature roundups well after its debut. A February 2024 Teams update highlighted a new Together mode layout with participants shown in a horizontal pane at the bottom of the video. ### What stays in Teams after this feature is removed? (xda-developers.com) Microsoft’s current Teams update pages continue to highlight changes tied to meeting fundamentals, including multilingual speech recognition, transcript attribution and other meeting workflow features. The company’s public support materials also continue to emphasize customizable meeting views more broadly, even as Together mode is being retired. (xda-developers.com) The Microsoft 365 Roadmap says planned and released commercial features are listed there and removed when they become generally available, canceled or postponed, but the company has not published a separate roadmap entry in the materials reviewed here that lays out a direct successor to Together mode. That leaves the May 14 Insider post as the clearest public statement of what is changing. (support.microsoft.com) ### Where did this surface first for many users? XDA Developers reported on May 15 that Microsoft was dropping Together mode and redirecting attention to video quality improvements. The report cited Microsoft’s explanation that the company wanted to focus on features that help every meeting rather than maintain added interface complexity around a specialty view. (microsoft.com) Tony Redmond, writing on Microsoft’s Community Hub on May 4, also said Microsoft had announced plans to retire Together mode in June 2026. His post described the feature as something many users may have tried only briefly, though that assessment was his own and not a usage disclosure from Microsoft. (xda-developers.com) ### What should Teams users watch next? June 30 is the next concrete milestone for Teams users who still rely on Together mode in meetings. Microsoft said the feature will no longer be available after that date, and the company directed users to the updated meeting layout experience described in Tranker’s May 14 Microsoft 365 Insider post. (techcommunity.microsoft.com 1) (techcommunity.microsoft.com 2)