Microsoft Teams is the collaboration and communication powerhouse that’s become the ‘can’t live without it’ tool for businesses of all sizes. It has a huge range of features that bring teams together, drives productivity and makes us more efficient… but wait. There’s more!
Enter Microsoft Teams Premium.
Teams Premium is a supercharged upgrade designed for smarter meetings and improved security. It takes your business to the next level of communication with features like AI-powered tools and more personalised, branded interactions.
We’re going to take a close look at the upgraded version of Teams today. By the end, you should have a good idea of whether your business can benefit from the upgrade or should stick to standard Microsoft Teams.
What is Microsoft Teams Premium?
Microsoft Teams Premium is a pay-per-user add-on to the standard Microsoft Teams. It has all the Teams features you know and love, with some incredible new ones designed to boost your collaboration and communication capabilities. It supercharges meetings, webinars, virtual appointments and more, bringing together AI-powered tools and advanced security.
Let’s take a look at some of these standout features!
Standout Features of Microsoft Teams Premium
1. Smarter Meetings
1. Smarter Meetings‘Intelligent Recap’ is a Teams Premium feature that uses artificial intelligence to enhance meeting experiences. Forget about taking notes, it does that for you! Meeting summaries are automatically generated, with key points and actionable items highlighted.
If you missed the meeting completely, don’t stress. There will be AI-generated chapters that break down the meeting recordings into digestible segments. There will also be searchable transcripts that make it easy to find and jump to the relevant moments. You can even see when your name was mentioned and when you joined and left the meeting!
2. Enhanced Security
You’ve no doubt heard the horror stories in the media about people being duped by AI-generated video calls. Teams Premium has taken significant steps towards keeping your meetings secure and safe, bringing in enterprise-grade security features.
These include end-to-end encryption for up to 200 video call participants’ watermarked audio, video and shared content; limits on who can record, share and access meeting content; and controlled content meeting templates.
3. Branded Meeting Experiences
Make a professional impression on potential clients by leveraging your branding in your virtual meetings. With Teams Premium, your meetings can have the look and feel of your business thanks to branded organisational backgrounds and standardised meeting templates.
4. Advanced Webinar Hosting
Hosting webinars is a seamless, professional and easy process with Teams Premium. You’re in control of the entire lifecycle, from registration to follow ups. You can set a capacity on the webinar size, set registration start and end times, enable a waitlist and set a manual request approval.
During the webinar you have strong control over what people see, with the ability to include interactive features like polls, breakout rooms and Q and A’s.
After the webinar, attendee analytics allow you to track engagement and follow up with attendees with personalised insights.
5. Manage Virtual Appointments
Appointment-heavy industries like consultants or the legal profession will enjoy the advanced scheduling tools in Teams Premium. Automated reminders can be sent out to attendees, as well as real time notifications to keep everybody on the same page. You can also customise the waiting room for attendees who join your appointments to give a more personalised impression.
Is Microsoft Teams Premium Worth the Investment?
The above points provide a solid understanding of the additional features offered by Teams Premium. Is it worth it for your business? To answer that, you’ll need to know the cost. Firstly, it requires that you have a current Microsoft Teams license. The Teams Premium license is not a replacement for this, both licenses have to be in place for the features to work properly.
That said, the Teams Premium Add-on will set your business back $15/user/month, paid yearly.
To justify that cost, you’ll need to decide if the exclusive Teams Premium features will be relevant and used to their full extent by your workforce. For example, if you regularly host large scale online events, the 20,000-person view-only broadcasts would make the subscription worth your while, as would the 1,000-person interactive meetings.
Additionally, Microsoft has also made some of the features previously included in Teams Standard only available in Premium. Some of these are live translated captions, SMS integration, PowerPoint Live chapters, timeline markers and scheduled queue view. If your team relies on any of these features, then the upgrade to Teams Premium will ensure seamless operations.
Seamless Microsoft 365 Integration and Upgrades
If Microsoft Teams Premium is a good fit for your business, upgrading will help maximise your productivity, safeguard meetings and enhance your customer experiences. Your team will collaborate better, and achieve more!
If you’d like help with implementing Microsoft 365 into your business, or have any questions about upgrading to Teams Premium, we’re the IT support company with the answers!
Get in touch with Smile IT today, and lets see how Microsoft 365 and Teams Premium can empower your business.
When he’s not writing tech articles or turning IT startups into established and consistent managed service providers, Peter Drummond can be found kitesurfing on the Gold Coast or hanging out with his family!