Microsoft just released an article, where several upcoming features to Microsoft Mesh was highlighted. I am extremely pleased to see what kind of progress Mesh is doing – and also showing publicly what is coming out the next. As Mesh is not yet in the Microsoft 365 public roadmap, articles like this are very important as they show Mesh is evolving and developing in a good pace. Even with these updates Mesh is just on its first steps – and it is starting to look better and better.
Microsoft is stating in the blog “These enhancements are just the beginning. We’re committed to continuously evolving Mesh to provide you with the best virtual collaboration tools.” and I have no doubt it would not live up to this promise. The product group behind Mesh is just purely awesome, as I have met them in person a few times during previous and this year. The passion to build the best virtual collaboration tools will deliver results!
What kind of new & updated features we will be seeing at Microsoft Mesh during this summer of 2024?
AI-Enabled Avatar Creation is coming to public preview this month – and some people has this already! This means you can take a photo (or use any image you have) and Mesh AI can create your avatar. You can of course edit it as you like afterwards. Personally I love this feature, as it saves tons of time – and I don’t seem to get my avatar look right manually. This helps big time when creating an avatar.
Related to avatars, there has been new wardrobe options since mid-May. If you want to update your avatar to more professional style: check the avatar editing app in Teams for new options.
New immersive space tailored for workshops, brainstorming, orientations and so on is coming to public preview during this month. This space looks really good. The video is still showing work in progress for space’s design but since it is coming out soon I would not expect it to have dramatic changes. There are lots of people in that demo video – I hope this implies that Mesh limits for number of people in the room are growing! Larger number of attendees might be just for this design video, but I have my fingers crossed for increasing Mesh room limits.
During June Immersive Spaces in Mac Teams client is going to be generally available. Finally.
Emotes in 3D Spaces are coming to public preview during July. Reactions button at immersive space toolbar will be getting new emojis you can use to express yourself.
Avatar Interaction Improvements will be coming during August. What these are wasn’t stated, but what was said is that there are already new options for selecting the view (first person, third person (which is the default), third person wide) that are already available (or coming very soon this month). What is good is that personal boundary improvements are also coming during July.
Content sharing improvements are also coming during August to public preview. This seems to be focusing mostly on enhancing readability of the shared content when using screenshare such as PowerPoint, Loop page, Whiteboard, web-page, etc. in the Mesh event or to Teams immersive meeting.
Mesh app improvements
During July the Mesh app (Mesh custom spaces) will get new features – quite welcome ones. Customizing events with your content (such as pictures, videos and screen share views) will be easier and thus customizing events will be streamlining from the current version. There will be also new event templates that can be used when creating your events without having to develop your own using Unity. Presenting content in events that span multiple rooms will also be easier as Mesh will visualize attendee reactions to the presenter from all rooms (instead of just the one where the presenter is) and there will be possible to switch rooms “room hopping” so presenters can move between rooms to enable natural interactions with people.
I have saved a very important update to the last in the post. This change is enabling new scenarios for many organizations: you can rejoin Mesh events with a link after the event has ended. Mesh events will be just like Teams meetings: they don’t have an end date. In other words: events become “permanent”, that can be reused with the same link all over again. This enables creation of long-lasting spaces such as showrooms, onboarding experiences, control rooms, coffee & break rooms – the Mesh watercooler space is going to be possible! This is coming early July!
This revisit event links feature is a step towards persistent virtual spaces (that could be also called to be part of the metaverse..) but there will be some hindering features that prevent the true versatile use. In Mesh events you can customize the event before it starts – and once it starts you can’t do more customization (like adding or changing images). Since nothing was mentioned about this, I assume this hasn’t changed – and these long-lasting / permanent events need to be recreated if you want to change contents (like update / add new images ). It isn’t difficult – just make a template out of your event and use it as a base when applying changes. However, this will create a new link for the space. Time to use a short link service again, and most of the people won’t notice anything!
It is looking good, Microsoft Mesh! All these features seem to be available by the end of August – which means there will be great sessions about these during the Metaverse One 2024 event, which is on September 18th. Register for the event – there are going to be several sessions by the Mesh product group members.
Do you want to know more? Read Microsoft’s blog article about these releases! Pictures (except the Metaverse One 2024) & videos in this post are from Microsoft article.
Vesa Nopanen - Future Work today 