Data Backup Digest

The recent partnership between Microsoft and the development team at OpenAI is no longer a secret. Not only has Microsoft updated their Edge web browser with AI functionality, but they’ve infused Bing with next-gen AI, too. And now, just a few weeks after extending their partnership, Microsoft is unveiling Microsoft Teams Premium – complete with AI integration.

What is Microsoft Teams Premium?

Microsoft Teams was officially launched in 2017. Meant to compete with software solutions like Slack, which provides digital workspace chat, videoconferencing, and data storage, Microsoft Teams quickly caught on with professionals in nearly every industry and occupation.

Although the basic version of Microsoft Teams is usable for free, they do have various pricing plans that offer paid users even more amenities. Their paid subscriptions have been rather lackluster, with many simply sticking to the free version – up until now. With the introduction of Microsoft Teams Premium, their highest pricing tier for Teams to date, Microsoft is hoping to reel in even more customers by bundling in GPT from OpenAI.

What is GPT?

Even though it’s only a few months at the time of this writing, you’ve likely already heard about ChatGPT. It’s making headlines – some good and some bad – across the globe. It’s an AI-infused chatbot that is capable of answering questions and even producing content like marketing collateral, advertisements, whitepapers, essays, poems, songs, and more. Although it’s still in its infancy stages and has a long way to go before it’s perfect, ChatGPT was developed by the team at OpenAI.

This is the same team that has partnered with Microsoft in the creation of their Microsoft Teams Premium pricing tier, and it’s the exact same team that’s responsible for infusing Teams with AI. In fact, Microsoft Teams Premium already features the latest version of GPT.

Nicole Herskowitz, vice president with Microsoft Teams, provided some more insight into the matter in a recent blog post by stating: “Built on the familiar, all-in-one collaborative experience of Microsoft Teams, Teams Premium brings the latest technologies, including Large Language Models powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5, to make meetings more intelligent, personalized, and protected—whether it’s one-on-one, large meetings, virtual appointments, or webinars.”

New Features Galore

Apart from the implementation of GPT, Microsoft Teams Premium includes a plethora of other new features. Users can automatically generate notes, track tasks, and even receive meeting highlights with the intelligent recap feature, while AI-generated chapters let you split longer meetings into smaller, easily manageable chapters.

Personalized timeline markers let individual users know exactly when they joined or left a meeting, so they can resume exactly where they left off, and live captions support 40 spoken languages in real-time. With all of this announced with the release of Microsoft Teams Premium, it will be interesting to see what features are added in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Making Microsoft Teams Work for You

The new premium subscription tier of Microsoft Teams is available for a limited time at $7 per month. However, once the initial promotion ends, the cost will rise to $10 per month for the general service. To find out more information about Microsoft Teams, or for more information on any Microsoft products, please visit their official website at {{https://www.microsoft.com|www.microsoft.com}}.