2025-11-19
Your Secret Weapon for Seamless Teams Events
Ever wished you could discreetly message your fellow presenters during a big Microsoft Teams webinar without attendees seeing? Good news! Microsoft Teams is rolling out a fantastic new feature: a private chat just for organisers, co-organisers, and presenters. This means you can now coordinate effortlessly behind the scenes, ensuring your structured meetings, webinars, and town halls run smoother than ever. Plus, Town Hall chats are getting a consistent update, so no more guessing how they’ll behave!
Why This Matters for Your Events:
- Seamless Coordination: Keep your event running like clockwork with real-time, private discussions amongst your event team, invisible to attendees. You can share notes, troubleshoot issues, or simply check in with each other before, during, and after the main event.
- Professional Delivery: Avoid awkward interruptions or visible presenter confusion. This private channel allows you to maintain a polished and professional front to your audience, ensuring your message comes across clearly and without a hitch.
- Simplified Town Halls: Say goodbye to confusing chat behaviours in Town Halls. A new unified approach means consistent backroom chat functionality for all town halls, making event planning and execution much more straightforward.
What’s Changing?
There are two key improvements coming your way:
- New Private Chat for Event Teams: Organisers, co-organisers, and presenters will now have a dedicated private chat. This chat is completely separate from the attendee chat and is available from the moment you set up your meeting right through to after the event concludes. It’s your secret backchannel for all important team communications.
- Unified Town Hall Backroom Chat: Microsoft is making the backroom chat for Town Halls much more consistent. Previously, how this chat behaved could vary depending on whether streaming chat was on or if you had a Teams Premium licence. Now, the backroom chat will be ON by default for all Town Halls, removing that confusion and ensuring a consistent experience for everyone.
When Will This Happen?
- Early Access (Targeted Release): If your organisation is opted into targeted releases, you’ll start seeing this feature roll out in early January 2026, completing by mid-January 2026.
- General Availability: For everyone else, expect the rollout to begin in mid-February 2026, with completion by late February 2026.
What You Can Do to Prepare:
To make the most of this update, here are a few simple steps:
- Take a moment to review your existing Teams meeting policies. Decide if you need to adjust anything regarding this new private chat feature for organisers and presenters.
- Chat with your helpdesk staff and event organisers. Make sure they’re aware of these upcoming changes so they can leverage them effectively.
- Update any internal guides or documentation you have that mention how to run Teams meetings, webinars, or town halls to reflect the new chat behaviours.
- If you decide you don’t want the backroom chat enabled by default for Town Halls, you can adjust this policy in your Teams admin centre.
This update is associated with Microsoft Roadmap ID 392328.