Microsoft Teams is in the Metaverse Universe

Online meeting spaces began to gain prominence with the transition to online education and remote working processes during the period when corona cases were at their peak. Microsoft’s Teams application is unquestionably one of these applications.

This application, which is usually selected by many educational institutions and businesses, amassed a significant user base in a short period of time, owing to the pandemic’s impact. Microsoft announced the Microsoft Teams feature in a recent announcement, which will compete with Meta’s (previously Facebook) augmented reality office tool. With the new functionality it has built for the Teams application, Microsoft is opening the doors to the metaverse realm. We will be able to join in online meetings with the three-dimensional characters, also known as avatars, that we designed for the metaverse thanks to this function. Micorosoft hopes that this new function will help to solve the problem of online meetings becoming monotonous and difficult to focus after a while. He will show other participants our digital duplicates that are quite similar to us, or our avatars that we made according to our own interests, in a way that accurately reflects our behaviors. All of our movements will be accurately reproduced on this virtual avatar formed as animation, thanks to the artificial intelligence technologies applied. These constructed virtual characters will be projected into the conference in two dimensions, so no VR glasses will be required to see them. Because metaverse avatars may be seen in three dimensions if the user wears VR glasses, a more realistic meeting environment will be produced. When incorporating this metaverse functionality into the Teams app, Microsoft will use the Mesh app. Because it is connected with Mesh, this newly added function is named “Mesh for Teams.” Microsoft will combine the mixed reality features of Mesh with the productivity tools of Teams in this feature, allowing people in different physical locations to participate in shared holographic experiences, such as virtual meetings, sending chats, and collaborating on shared documents, among other things.

So, what exactly is this Microsoft Mesh that we’re discussing? Why does Microsoft require Mesh as an online meeting solution, especially as Teams expands into the metaverse? Mesh is a mixed reality platform developed by Microsoft. Microsoft has created an entirely new way to meet in the virtual world thanks to this application. You can join the meeting by using 360 holoportation technology to simultaneously move your 3D avatar or photorealistic image to the Mesh platform. People can tell where they are in relation to each other via proximity and spatial audio. Users can annotate and co- visualize the 3D content they’re watching.

Microsoft intends to employ this new reality technology in the Teams program, as well as in games and consoles. Microsoft’s current focus, according to CEO Satya Nadella, is on integrating metaverse- like applications into games and Xbox. In his remarks, Nadella mentioned games that, if backed by wearable technologies such as VR headsets, will transport the gamer to another universe. The following are the remarks of Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, one of the technology behemoths:

“You can count on us to do something in this area about gaming.” Halo is a’metaverse’ in the sense that it is a game. Flight Simulator, like Minecraft, is a metaverse. They may be two-dimensional now, but the key question is whether they can be properly integrated into a three-dimensional reality. “It’s definitely in our plans to make it happen.”