Microsoft Teams on Web Gets Custom Backgrounds, Live Captions in 27 New Languages Including Hindi

Microsoft has announced a new update for its video conferencing platform Teams on Web with several new features. With this new update, Microsoft is introducing background effects for Teams on Web that will now allow users to add custom backgrounds, like blur. These custom backgrounds were earlier only available to Teams application users. Moreover, Teams on Web users can now view captions from a CART provider within the meeting window instead of opening up a new window. The new update brings live captions support for 27 new languages on Teams on Web, including Hindi, as well.

In a blog post, Microsoft has announced that the American company is adding a bunch of new features to the Microsoft Teams on Web. Among the new features, the company is bringing the background effects that were already present on the application version of Teams. Users can now choose to blur the background or select different Microsoft-provided backgrounds during a video conference or meeting. It is to be noted that the blurring or replacing of background may not prevent sensitive information from being visible to other people in the meeting.

Microsoft Teams on Web users can now view captions from a CART provider within the meeting window instead of a second one. Users can choose to enable the feature from their meeting options. The web version of the video conferencing platform is also getting the live captions with speaker attribution feature that will allow users to see who is speaking and what the speaker is saying. For captions, Microsoft has added 27 new spoken languages to the Teams on Web, including Hindi, German, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, and more. The live captions feature will work for these newly added languages as well.

The new update is also bringing live transcripts for the above mentioned newly added languages to the Microsoft Teams on Web. This feature will allow users to follow and review conversations that are happening and that a user might have missed with ease during a video or an audio conference. Microsoft also said that this promotes inclusivity for users who suffer from hearing disabilities or have a different level of language proficiency. Admins have to turn on the Allow Transcription policy to enable the feature.