Coming Soon: A New Chats and Channels Experience in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft is rolling out a redesigned Chats and Channels experience in Teams to streamline communication and collaboration. This update is based on user feedback and aims to reduce friction, improve visibility, and make it easier to stay on top of your conversations - whether you're chatting one-on-one, with a group, or collaborating in a team.
What’s New?
- Unified View: Chats, Teams, and Channels are now combined into a single, customizable view. You can still switch to separate views if you prefer to keep the standard experience.
- Favorites & Custom Sections: Pin your most important chats and channels to your Favorites section. Organize conversations by project, topic, or team by creating custom sections. Custom sections allow you to combine all chats, channels and meetings into one view to organize by a project, working group or initiative.
- Chats and Channels combined view: Use built in filters to view Unread chat and channel message, or focus on just chats, channels or meeting chats. This allows you to quickly stay on top of unread chats and channel conversations in one place instead of needing to switch between the Chats and Teams view.
When Will This Happen?
The rollout began in June 2025 and should be completed by early July.
What to Expect
The Microsoft Teams interface will update automatically, no action is needed. Teams users will receive 3 prompts to try the new experience before the switch to the new experience, but you can always choose to return to the separate chats and channels view by going to Settings menu, selecting Chats and Channels, then choosing Separate under the Viewing chats, teams and channels heading.
Additional information
- Learn more about the new chats and channel experience
- New to teams? Visit OIT’s Microsoft Teams Service page for helpful tips, training resources and much more!
- Need more help or recommendations tailored to your team? Schedule a consultation with our Messaging and Collaboration team.