Microsoft is rolling out a brand new and improved model of its Microsoft Groups chat consumer right this moment. It has been rebuilt from the bottom as much as make it sooner and simpler to make use of and has been in preview since March. After years of growth, Home windows and Mac customers can now freely set up the brand new model of Microsoft Groups.
The brand new model of Groups is as much as two occasions sooner whereas utilizing 50 % much less reminiscence, in accordance with Microsoft. That’s excellent news to anybody who makes use of Groups already, which has been notably resource-hungry on older laptops and PCs. Putting in the brand new Microsoft Groups app ought to be thrice sooner and launching or becoming a member of conferences two occasions sooner, with the app now taking over 70 % much less disk area.
All of those efficiency enhancements are because of Microsoft ditching the Electron foundations of Groups and transferring towards Microsoft’s Edge WebView2 expertise. Microsoft has additionally moved to the React JavaScript library and targeted on enhancing the Microsoft Groups design with the Fluent design language system for a number of UI enhancements.
The brand new Groups has been in preview for months, however throughout that point, it was lacking some options that Microsoft has now added to the ultimate model. “We now have made notable progress because the launch of recent Groups in public preview,” says Microsoft in a weblog put up. “New Groups now has full function parity for nearly all options together with customized line-of-business apps, third-party apps, breakout rooms, 7×7 video, name queues, PSTN calling, contextual search in chats and channels, cross-post a channel dialog, and extra.”
New Microsoft Groups options will now be delivered solely on this new Groups consumer, so companies might want to improve. There’s no migration required, although, so upgrading ought to be so simple as an replace. Microsoft says “basic Groups” customers will probably be mechanically upgraded to new Groups within the coming months.
The brand new Groups consumer additionally wasn’t out there initially for Mac customers earlier this yr in preview, however with the ultimate launch for macOS, there are additionally enhancements for Apple’s gadgets. “We’re additionally seeing vital efficiency enhancements on Mac, together with the power to modify between chats and channels sooner, and entry related data rapidly and effectively with a sooner scrolling expertise,” says Microsoft. “Groups works natively on all Mac gadgets, together with these with Apple silicon, giving Mac customers an improved app expertise.”
This new Microsoft Groups consumer can also be the inspiration for the corporate’s AI-powered Copilot push in Groups. You’ll have the ability to use Copilot in Groups to summarize conferences, learn motion gadgets, and keep away from lengthy threads of conversations to get to the important thing factors.
Enterprise customers of Microsoft Groups will now see a toggle to improve to the brand new Groups consumer, and it’ll change into the default app within the month-to-month enterprise channel in December. Microsoft has a full schedule for precisely how this rollout will have an effect on totally different Microsoft 365 customers right here.
