July-August developments
August 2025 brings a wave of smart, user-centric enhancements to Microsoft Teams. Among the key updates is the Countdown Timer for Meetings, which allows participants to add a visual timer of up to 100 minutes during a session.
To improve communication efficiency, Smart Call Transfer Suggestions have been added to Teams Phone devices. This feature intelligently recommends contacts for call transfers based on recent activity and group associations.
Microsoft also rolled out an Improved Meeting Search experience on desktop. Users can now search for meetings by title or participant, join live meetings, view recaps, and access shared content.
Additionally, Live Captions and Transcripts have received several usability and privacy enhancements. Captions are now scrollable for easier review, transcript panels no longer open automatically to reduce screen clutter, and caption copying is disabled by default to better protect sensitive information.
Leading the list is the Interpreter feature, now generally available. It delivers real-time speech-to-speech translation in nine languages—including Mandarin, French, and Japanese.
Accessibility also takes a leap forward with Sign Language Mode. Using advanced detection technology, Teams can now automatically recognise signers, elevate them to active speaker status, and improve video quality—ensuring deaf and hard-of-hearing participants.
In Town Halls, attendees can now raise their hands to ask questions, while a new ultra-low latency option for Teams Premium keeps everyone in near real-time sync with presenters.
Google Meet is getting a new feature: automated room check-in using ultrasound proximity detection. Users can connect using companion mode on their computers. The system detects when a participant is physically present in the room using the laptop’s built-in microphone.
In August 2025, Zoom launched Zoom Hub, a new centralised workspace that allows users to access and manage all their content—like recordings, summaries, documents, and whiteboards—in one place. It also features AI Companion tools for quickly creating and collaborating on documents and clips. Around the same time, Zoom released version 6.5.8.
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