Microsoft Teams: Enhanced Chat contextual info and Search

Updated September 25, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: As in the General channel, chat users will have access to contextual information including People, Pinned messages, Shared files and links, and will be able to search from chat. This message applies to Teams for Desktop, web, and Mac.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 398956.

When this will happen:

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out late July 2024 and expect to complete by late July 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide and GCC): We will begin rolling out early September 2024 (previously mid-Augus) and expect to complete by mid-September 2024 (previously late August).

General Availability (GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out mid-September 2024 and expect to complete by mid-January 2025 (previously early October).

How this will affect your organization:

Before this rollout: Users lacked one place to find contextual information in chat.

After this rollout, users can select the new entry point in the top right corner of the chat window to access contextual chat information (People, Pinned messages, Shared files and links). Users can also search the chat and pin multiple messages:

The default state of this feature is on and is accessible to all Teams users (Desktop, web, Mac).

What you need to do to prepare:

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Before rollout, we will update this post with revised documentation.