Microsoft Teams now lets users pop out side panes for Chat, Notes, and Copilot

Microsoft Teams has rolled out a new feature that promises to improve the meeting experience for its users. In a blog post, the Redmond-based tech giant says the feature allows participants to pop out the side panes for Chat, Notes, and Copilot.

Chat, which lets users communicate with each other during the meeting, can be particularly helpful for discussions that need to happen in real time. Notes, as the name suggests, is for taking notes. Copilot, a feature of the new Microsoft 365 Copilot license, can help in other ways, such as providing real-time translation to make meetings more accessible to people who speak different languages.

Popping out the panes can make watching these different aspects of a meeting more straightforward. Users can resize and reposition the panes, and they’re not restricted to a single monitor.

The panes are available to Teams users who are part of the Teams Public Preview or Microsoft 365 Targeted release using the new Teams client on Windows or Mac. Other participants don’t need to be using the preview.

Users can click the pop-out icon at the top during a meeting to pop out a pane. They can also pop out a pane by right-clicking the chat, notes, or copilot button at the top of the meeting window and selecting “Pop out [pane name].”

The only caveat is that to use the feature, an organization’s IT admin must be enabled to use preview features. The feature is only available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license in the ‘Worldwide’ environment.

Microsoft says the feature should be available to all Teams users in the coming weeks.

In other news, if you’re using Teams, you can enjoy its new unified experience with Outlook, allowing you to save contacts on one platform and automatically access them on the other.