Microsoft ditches Teams feature that put attendees into the same virtual room

Key points

• Microsoft added the Teams "Together" feature during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to help employees feel as if they were working together in the same space.
• Now that everyone is mostly back to the office, the company is doing away with the feature and steering users toward Gallery.
• The move will reduce implementation complexity while boosting video quality, Microsoft explained in its Insider Blog.
• Microsoft justified chopping Together mode by saying it "increases cognitive load for users" and "adds implementation complexity across platforms." It also suggested that the mode can create a choppy video experience on mobile and other "modest" devices that lack processing power.
• Gallery mode, by contrast, will allow "smoother video on modest devices," via the adaptive video tile counts that prevent machine overload.