Microsoft launched early entry to its main replace for its Slack competitor in the present day. Microsoft Groups 2 has been “reimagined” primarily based on consumer suggestions with pace and ease as two of the replace’s priorities. The all-new expertise is on the market in preview for Home windows with the corporate saying an early model for Mac is coming too.
Microsoft introduced the overhaul for Groups in a weblog publish in the present day. Since debuting in 2017, the corporate says the objective for “Groups has at all times been to carry collectively all of your communication and collaboration instruments in a single place” and that now it’s delivering an all-new expertise constructed from “the bottom up.”
We have now been listening to your suggestions which has culminated in a reimagining of Groups from the bottom up. The brand new app is constructed on a basis of pace, efficiency, flexibility, and intelligence—delivering as much as two occasions quicker efficiency whereas utilizing 50 % much less reminiscence so it can save you time and collaborate extra effectively. We have now additionally streamlined the consumer expertise in order that it’s easier to make use of and simpler to seek out all the things in a single place. These enhancements additionally present the muse for game-changing new AI-powered experiences, corresponding to Copilot for Microsoft Groups, introduced earlier this month.
The first enhancements to Groups are round making it:
- Sooner
- Less complicated
- Extra Versatile
- Smarter
Sooner
Microsoft says its guiding mild for Groups 2 has been to “make it twice as quick whereas utilizing half the system assets.” To perform that main objective, it needed to make “a ground-up funding to overtake the platform to optimize the info, community, chat, and video structure for pace and efficiency.”
Whereas it says the optimization work isn’t over, it has achieved huge progress with the brand new Groups app seeing the launch time and becoming a member of a gathering each already 2x quicker for the general public preview.
Less complicated
For this objective, the corporate says it’s at all times exploring learn how to supply “a less complicated but feature-rich expertise for our numerous and rising consumer base.” With the up to date Groups, all the things from composing a message, notifications, search, group, and extra has been streamlined.
Extra Versatile
For improved flexibility, Microsoft says it has upgraded “our authentication mannequin, synchronization, and notification methods to supply a seamless and constant expertise.” And it’s making it simpler to work throughout a number of tenants and accounts. “As an alternative of logging out and in of various tenants and accounts, now you can keep signed in throughout all of them—receiving notifications irrespective of which one you might be at present utilizing.”
Smarter
As Microsoft beforehand introduced its Copliot AI characteristic that may come to its Workplace apps and Groups, the corporate highlights that Groups 2 can be “the muse for next-generation AI experiences, together with these we’ve beforehand introduced.”
It sees the most recent AI as dashing up workflows, serving to to reply questions in discussions, and far more.
Availability
Microsoft began rolling out the Groups 2 preview for Home windows in the present day with admin assets right here to allow it. The corporate says it plans to launch the all-new Groups preview for Macs “later this yr” and that the general public launch for model 2 will even be “later this yr.”
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