Microsoft Introduces Mesh for Teams to Collaborate in the Metaverse

Following Meta's announcement of the metaverse, Microsoft unveiled its own metaverse for mixed-reality collaboration. At the Ignite 2021 tech conference, Microsoft introduced Mesh for Teams, a Mesh-based collaborative platform integrated into Microsoft Teams to let people communicate and collaborate in mixed reality.

Microsoft plans to combine its own software products into a single metaverse where people can interact with each other using augmented and virtual reality.

In Mesh for Teams, users can create their own virtual 3D avatar and use it during meetings in a virtual environment. Apart from avatars, users will also be able to select a video, static picture, or simply a field with their name to represent them.

Microsoft notes that there are multiple ways to use the Mesh platform. For instance, it can be used to work in a shared virtual environment with an immersive experience with the ability to chat, share documents, as well as utilize other Teams tools.

In addition to organizing virtual meetings, companies will also get the opportunity to create a metaverse – an immersive space for people from all over the world to connect with each other in the same environment.

Teams will also add support for translation and transcription, allowing users to effortlessly communicate with colleagues from all over the globe.

The first version of Microsoft's metaverse is expected to be available for global use in 2022.