Microsoft Teams is Microsoft’s cloud-based collaboration hub, released worldwide on 14 March 2017 as part of the Microsoft 365 suite. It unifies persistent chat, voice and video meetings, file-sharing and third-party apps inside a single workspace, allowing users to switch fluidly between messaging, co-authoring and live calls without leaving the platform. Daily active usage has risen to roughly 280 million in 2025, making Teams the second-most-used meeting product after Zoom, particularly where organisations already subscribe to Microsoft 365.
Typical scenarios include:
- Hybrid and remote workspaces – scheduling and running video, audio or webinar-style meetings; recording and transcribing sessions; issuing polls.
- Front-line and shift-based work – mobile “Walkie Talkie”, shift rostering and approvals via Teams on iOS / Android.
- Project-centric collaboration – dedicated channels with tabs for Planner, Power BI and SharePoint dashboards.
- Cross-organisation events – external webinars with up to 1,000 interactive attendees (20,000 view-only).
- Emerging AI scenarios – live Copilot summaries, and a forthcoming interpreter mode providing real-time speech-to-speech translation in nine languages
Key Features and Benefits
| Feature | What it does | Benefit to users |
| Channels & Chat | Persistent threaded conversations, rich reactions, file pins | Keeps context and documents together, reducing email overload |
| Meetings & Teams Rooms | HD video, breakout rooms, transcription, intelligent recap | Seamless hybrid meetings; accessibility and post-meeting clarity |
| Teams Phone & PSTN | Enterprise telephony with Operator Connect & Direct Routing | One consolidated UCaaS stack; 99.999 % SLA on uptime |
| App & Workflow Integrations | 1,000 + first- and third-party apps, Power Automate flows | Embeds business processes where staff already collaborate |
| Security & Compliance | Data residency, eDiscovery, DLP, encryption at rest/in transit | Meets ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR and UK-NHS requirements |
| AI Enhancements | Copilot chat, intelligent transcript search, video super-resolution | Cuts administrative time and surfaces insights quickly |
Sectors of Adoption and Illustrative Clients
| Sector | How Teams is used | Example client(s) |
| Education | Virtual classrooms, staff PLCs, student submissions | Weston College transformed engagement with channel-based learning |
| Higher Education | Cross-faculty collaboration & dissertation supervision | University of Edinburgh marketing students report 100 % willingness to reuse Teams |
| Healthcare | Multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings, remote clinics, secure note-taking | NHS Bury CCG cut board-meeting travel by 40 %; Mid Cheshire Hospitals saved 48 clinician hours via virtual MDTs |
| Manufacturing & Automotive | Shop-floor video inspections, hybrid engineering scrums | Toyota Motor Europe used mobile Teams video to share best practice across factories |
| Professional Services | Firm-wide knowledge-sharing, client co-authoring, Loop components | Accenture’s 569,000 staff exchange 589 million chats and 1.2 billion audio minutes per month inside Teams |
Company History and Headquarters
First announced on 2 November 2016 following Microsoft’s decision to build rather than buy Slack, Teams replaced Skype for Business and launched globally on 14 March 2017. Development is led from the Microsoft campus at One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, USA
Industry Recognition and Awards
- Gartner Magic Quadrant – Microsoft has been positioned as a Leader for UCaaS worldwide for six consecutive years (2019-2024), citing Teams’ breadth of meetings, telephony and AI capability
- G2 Best Software Awards 2025 – Teams ranked among the Top Enterprise and Collaboration & Productivity Products, and holds “Leader” badges in Video Conferencing across EMEA, Germany and the UK
- UC Awards (partner ecosystem) – Solutions built on Teams, such as ComputerTalk’s contact-centre integration, won Best Microsoft Teams Contact Centre Solution 2024
Sentiment from Customer Reviews
| Source | Average score | Themes praised | Common gripes |
| G2 (16,000 + reviews) | 4.4 / 5 | Seamless Office 365 integration, single hub for chat, meetings and files | Memory-hungry desktop client, UI clutter when switching tenants |
| Capterra (3,800 + reviews) | 4.5 / 5 | Modern interface, cross-platform access, meeting set-up ease | Learning curve for new users; occasional performance lag |
Overall, reviewers regard Microsoft Teams as an intuitive, feature-rich workspace that excels when organisations are already invested in Microsoft 365. The most frequently cited benefits are streamlined collaboration and reduced email traffic; the chief concerns remain resource usage on older devices and occasional complexity for first-time users.