Whether your organization operates on a remote or hybrid model or relies on digital communication to power its in-office organization, you need robust, value-packed tools to help your team keep organized, manage tasks, and stay aligned on key projects
Among their toolkit of productivity solutions, many organizations rely on Microsoft Teams as their go-to platform for collaborating virtually in the workplace. Thanks to the tool’s deep integration within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, its unified, interconnected space makes communication more efficient and cohesive.
However, if you’re finding their basic version of the technology a bit too “one-size-fits-all”, Microsoft Teams Premium offers enhanced customization, stronger security, and AI-powered collaboration to fit your team’s working styles and goals.
Below, we’ll break down what’s included in a subscription and explore ways the service can enhance your workplace efficiency and performance.
What Is Microsoft Teams Premium?
Microsoft Teams Premium is an optional add-on for users who already have a Teams license. Microsoft offers several business plans, each providing different levels of functionality and pricing:
- Microsoft Teams Essentials: A basic option that gives users access to the Teams app with core features such as file sharing, tasks, polling, 10 GB of cloud storage per user, meeting recordings with transcripts and live captions, and standard security measures.
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic and Business Standard: These plans include Teams access along with additional Microsoft cloud services and applications, more storage, and expanded security and access controls.
For organizations that need more advanced meeting features for increased customization and control, Teams Premium is available for an additional $10 per user, per month.
Advanced Meeting Features That Save Time and Brainpower
Even when conducted virtually, attending meetings can be exhausting. Along with the excessive screen time, participants have to engage in considerable cognitive work: multitasking, listening, taking notes, and organizing the next steps. Various Microsoft Teams Premium features are available to help users spend less effort communicating clearly and effectively.
Intelligent Recap
One of the most useful Teams meeting AI tools to improve any hybrid meeting strategy is Intelligent Recap, which automates creating post-meeting insights. The platform will:
- Auto-generate chapters, creating segments based on content topics.
- Establish “personalized timeline markers” to highlight critical moments for specific users. No need to watch the entire recording; you can quickly sift through to see when someone mentioned your name, for example.
- Label “speaker timeline markers” so you can quickly jump to specific comments from a particular person.
This feature is perfect for quickly reviewing meeting content, whether you need a refresher or catching up after missing part or all of the meeting.
With Premium, you can also leverage this AI meeting summary to shoulder other mundane administrative tasks. The tool will highlight critical conversation points, noting suggestions for follow-up assignments so your employees can start taking action immediately after a conversation. They can focus on solving problems and making decisions, not sorting through their meeting notes to determine the key takeaways.
Live Caption Translation
Many organizations operate with diverse, internationally located teams or run large-scale meetings and Microsoft Teams webinars with customers worldwide. The live translated transcription feature lets attendees engage with a meeting’s content with fewer communication barriers and misunderstandings, with the option to translate the meeting conversation into more than 40 different languages in real time. The transcript will also automatically label and identify speakers, so it’s always clear who is speaking when reviewing the notes later.
Immersive Meeting Experiences
Virtual meetings can now feel more like face-to-face, in-person conversations with a Microsoft Teams PC or Meta headset. Microsoft Mesh is a new Teams Premium feature that aims to make meeting participants feel like they are in the same physical space, compatible with up to 16 users at a time. For events with up to 330 attendees, you will need to use a separate Microsoft Mesh app, where you can customize various aspects of the meeting as well to reflect your organization’s branding and values.
Elevate Stakeholder Engagement with Microsoft Bookings
Whether you’re an association with a membership base, a nonprofit with clients and donors, or a business with customers, you can leverage Microsoft Booking to streamline virtual appointments in Teams and enrich how your staff connects with individual stakeholders.
Premium users get access to advanced scheduling features such as:
- SMS notifications to text reminders, and other updates to attendees
- Scheduled Queue dashboard to manage incoming appointments
- Customized virtual lobby while individuals are waiting for their appointment
- Organizational and departmental analytics
Customization That Reflects Your Brand and Workflow
Organizations have frequently found virtual meeting spaces lacking in functionality. With Teams Premium, you can access several options to create a more standardized, cohesive digital professional appearance that aligns with your offline presence.
Branded Meetings & Templates
Your organization can create custom meeting templates that predefine everything from chat to reactions to mic and camera settings, so employees can automatically comply with internal communication policies or industry regulations when setting up new meetings.
You also have several options to brand your meetings and present a consistent brand image at every touchpoint with attendees: in invites, the join launch page, the waiting room, or during the meeting, with elements such as your logo, color palette, and even a custom background
Scalable Webinars with Built-in Event Management
Teams Premium gives organizations many options for controlling and personalizing large-scale meetings and webinars to deliver a more professional experience for participants.
- Easily manage registration with the ability to customize when registration will start and end
- Create a waitlist for potential audience members after you’ve reached your event capacity and manually organize registrants if needed.
- Offer presenters and hosts a Virtual Green Room to chat before the official start time
- Customize emails for communicating with webinar attendees
- Manage what attendees see and hide attendee names
Built-In Security That Protects Your Work
Want to prevent downtime that disrupts your operations? A productive digital work environment needs to start with secure infrastructure, and Teams Premium can play a role in minimizing your risk.
Sensitivity Labels & Watermarks
The “Watermark” feature lets you confidently share confidential and sensitive information during digital meetings, since you’ll deter data leaks by making unauthorized disclosures more traceable.
Your organization can also leverage the “sensitive labels” feature to manage meeting security efficiently. Set parameters for what constitutes “sensitive” content in advance and then quickly apply locked settings to block specific actions in the meeting, such as who can record, copy chat contents, or present.
End-to-End Encryption
End-to-end encryption in Teams is a valuable feature for enhancing your virtual meeting security. Although this may deactivate some of your meeting features, it will allow you to prevent anyone besides the meeting participants from consuming the content discussed, including the people at Microsoft!
Make the Most of Teams Premium with designDATA
Microsoft Teams Premium is a valuable solution for organizations looking to strengthen their approach to communicating and collaborating digitally. From its advanced meeting capabilities that leverage artificial intelligence to its security-focused features like sensitivity labels and end-to-end encryption, you can access diverse features to create a seamless and professional atmosphere for your team and community.
Curious about Teams Premium or other M365 applications? Our experts are ready to help you implement Microsoft 365 productivity tools effectively with ongoing guidance and training.
Let’s discuss how we can empower your team with smarter collaboration, stronger security, and more impact.
