Microsoft’s AI-powered solution, intelligent recap, is now available for Teams Premium customers.
Intelligent recap will provide users with various features designed to boost their productivity around meeting and information management, including automatically generated meeting notes, recommended tasks, and personalised highlights.
Intelligent recap is designed to help users adjust to the “exponential growth of meetings and information”, as Meera Ajam, GTM Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, wrote in an accompanying blog post.
Ajam expanded:
“Meeting overload, fragmented conversations, and the added coordination burden from hybrid work all make getting – and staying – on the same page as a team challenging(…) Intelligent recap leverages AI to automatically provide a comprehensive overview of your meeting, helping users save time catching up and coordinating next steps.”
Teams Premium customers will find the ‘Recap’ tab in Teams calendar and chat.
Intelligent recap is currently only available in English, but several other languages are scheduled to roll out this autumn.
Multiple Useful Features
Among the features embedded into intelligent recap are “AI-generated notes”, which allow users to concentrate fully on the meeting without focusing on writing notes. Users can read the key points and takeaways after the meeting, with the notes automatically created and powered by GPT.
“AI-generated tasks” streamline follow-up workloads with automatically suggested action items.
However, AI-generated notes and AI-generated tasks will not be available for EU-based customers until mid-August.
“Personalised timeline markers” aim to help users find the essential part of missed meetings. “Now users can navigate efficiently to the parts of the recording most relevant to them through personalised timeline markers — only visible to the individual user —which show when their name was mentioned, when a screen was shared, and when they joined and left the meeting,” Ajam wrote.
Also included are “speaker timeline markers” that indicate who spoke during the meeting and when they spoke. It also enables users to jump to that moment.
Features planned to roll out over the coming months include automatically generated meeting “chapters” that separate the meeting into sections. This will simplify selecting and jumping to the most pertinent section. There will also be meeting topics so users can jump to the point when a relevant subject is mentioned.
An Evolved Meeting Recap for Regular Teams Customers
Microsoft is updating meeting recaps for all Teams users, too.
Available on the “Recap” tab, the feature will allow users to watch the meeting recording directly within Teams. It will also provide co-created collaborative meeting notes, meeting transcripts, and content shared during the session.
However, these additions will not encompass any AI-powered insights included in the Teams Premium license.
Microsoft’s AI Ambitions
Intelligent recap was initially announced in February when the Teams Premium service revealed a swathe of AI-powered features.
Also revealed in February were “live translation” — which involved AI-powered real-time translation in 40 spoken languages — and “meeting templates”, which automatically include the correct settings to make conference call creation and organisation more accessible and reduce the time and thought process required.
The most significant AI-themed project Microsoft is embarking on is Copilot, however.
Microsoft first outlined Copilot’s productivity-boosting features for PowerPoint and Excel in its original announcement in March. It subsequently revealed the AI-powered solution’s integration with SharePoint and Microsoft Viva. Copilot capabilities were also announced for OneNote, Outlook and Whiteboard, signalling Microsoft had implemented its Copilot AI across its entire 365 suite.
Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO at Microsoft, has enthused about Copilot’s potential to transform the way we work and previously commented: “This new generation of AI will remove the drudgery of work and unleash creativity. There’s an enormous opportunity for AI-powered tools to help alleviate digital debt, build AI aptitude and empower employees.”
Microsoft also recently expanded its Copilot Early Access Programme to 600 businesses. Microsoft initially tested Copilot via invitation-only previews between March and May with 20 business customers. That business pool has now grown to an initial wave of 600 after “overwhelming feedback” — as described by Jared Spataro, CVP of Modern Work and Business Applications at Microsoft — from those companies with preview access.
Last week, during its Build update, Microsoft announced it was extending its Copilot 365 AI with ChatGPT plugins and Teams messages extensions. Plugins for 365 Copilot will also include Bing and Power Platform connectors.
Microsoft also revealed at Build that it was adding Copilot to Windows 11. Windows Copilot will be integrated directly into Windows 11 and usable via the taskbar across all apps and programmes. Windows Copilot can summarize content a user might read in an app, edit it, or explain it. It’s similar in function to the Bing dialogue box. There will be a separate Copilot button alongside the search bar, which has drawn parallels with productivity assistant Cortana and Windows 10.
