The pandemic forced us to reimagine how we connect with people. Microsoft Teams, along with other video conferencing apps, became a crucial part of this. Teams, that was previously known only in the corporate environment, became a part of people’s everyday lives.

People just weren’t using it to collaborate with their teams anymore. Classes and meetings came to our living rooms with Microsoft Teams. Personal connections were not only forged, but they thrived on the platform.

From watching movies together to attending friends’ weddings and baby showers, everything happened online. Teams became personal overnight. Microsoft even introduced Teams Personal just to make it easier for everyone to use it for connecting with friends and family.

With Windows 11, it’s going to become even better and easier. Microsoft just unveiled Windows 11 at an event yesterday. It’s a beautiful update through and through. From a fresh new look, a Taskbar and Start menu that now rests snugly in the center, snapshots, and widgets, a lot is happening in Windows 11. Microsoft Teams is another aspect of this new and exciting update.

Windows 11 will integrate Microsoft Teams chat right into the taskbar. So, any time you need to connect with anyone, all you have to do is reach for your taskbar. You can chat with people and start voice and video calls just in a couple of clicks.

Even though the world is recovering and reopening, the way we connected during this past year, it’s going to stay with us. For some, it has even become somewhat of a tradition. So, instead of becoming obsolete once all this is over, Microsoft Teams would just be another place where connections happen.

And Teams integration foresees that. Microsoft Teams integration would make it super-fast to chat or call someone without even having to open the app. Clicking the Teams button from the taskbar will bring up a beautiful screen, with all your personal and group chats right there. You can also start a new chat or a meeting with a single click.

When you want to chat with someone, the chat window will open independent of the Teams app. As will your calls. You can also start any calls just by hovering over the contact’s chat and clicking the call button.

The chat window opens as a small independent window right from the taskbar.

So, you don’t have to worry about running the app every time you want to connect with someone or keeping the app open all the time to get your notifications.

You’ll get your call notifications right on the desktop.

Microsoft Teams will work on all platforms – Windows, Mac, iOS, Android – just like it does now. The integration won’t mess around with that aspect. It’ll also make it easy for you to mute/ unmute instantly and present right from the taskbar. You can also open the app straight from here if you need to make the switch. The new integration would bring everything to your fingertips.

You can even chat with someone right from Teams integration on the Taskbar, even if they don’t have the Teams app. Two-way SMS in Teams will make it possible to easily connect with anyone.


And this is just an overview of what the new integration would entail. The complete scope of how this will change Microsoft Teams would become clear once Windows 11 arrives later this year.