Microsoft brings animated avatars to 'Teams' software in metaverse push

Microsoft has announced to bring your digital avatar right into its video conferencing software 'Teams'.

With the new update, the company will bring 'animated avatars' to Teams in its premium section 'Microsoft Teams Premium' with features like AI-generated tasks and meeting guides.

The update is set to arrive in December in preview, and the cost is expected to be $10 per user per month, said the company during its at 'Ignite 2022' event.

"We are introducing Teams Premium meeting offering that includes Intelligent Recap, a powerful new AI experience, like a virtual assistant during meetings even in your absence. It creates tasks, automatically generates chapters from the meeting, and shares personalized highlights from the recording," the tech giant added.

"Nearly 51 per cent of GenZs envision working in the metaverse in the next two years. Mesh avatars for Teams lets users create custom avatars to represent themselves so they can take a break from the camera but still have a physical presence in Teams meetings," the company added.

Teams Premium section also includes other features such as AI-powered live translations for captions, enabling meeting participants to view captions in any of 40 spoken languages so that everyone can join the discussion in the language of their choice.

Earlier this week, Microsoft and Meta partnered to bring Microsoft Teams to the Quest headsets soon.

--IANS

shs/na