Microsoft Teams: Private chat for organizers and presenters in structured meetings, webinars, and town halls

Microsoft Teams will introduce a private chat for organizers, co-organizers, and presenters in structured meetings, webinars, and town halls, unifying backroom chat behavior. Rollout starts January 2026, with default backroom chat ON for all town halls. Admins can manage these settings in Teams policies. Introduction We’re introducing a private chat feature for organizers, co-organizers, and presenters in structured meetings and webinars in Microsoft Teams. This separate chat enhances collaboration by allowing key participants to communicate privately before, during, and after the event, without involving attendees. Additionally, we are unifying backroom chat behavior in town halls to ensure consistent functionality across all structured meetings. Currently, backroom chat behavior varies depending on whether streaming chat is enabled for town halls and whether the organizer has a Teams Premium license. This update removes that inconsistency. This message is associated with Roadmap ID 392328 and applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams for the web, Teams for iOS/Android, MTR-W and MTR-A devices. When this will happen: Targeted Release: Rollout begins in early January 2026 and is expected to complete by mid-January 2026. General Availability (Worldwide and GCC): Rollout begins in mid-February 2026 and is expected to complete by late February 2026. How this affects your organization: Who is affected: Admins managing Microsoft Teams meetings, webinars, and town halls. What will happen: Two potential impacts: If an admin explicitly turns the new backroom chat policy OFF, any already-scheduled town hall that previously had backroom chat ON will lose access once the meeting options are updated. For non-TPre town halls where backroom chat was previously OFF, it will switch to ON by default after the rollout and a meeting options update. What you can do to prepare: Compliance considerations: New private chat for organizers, co-organizers, and presenters: This chat is separate from attendee chat and is available before, during, and after the event. Unified backroom chat policy for town halls: The default setting will be ON for all town halls, regardless of streaming chat availability or license type. Existing town halls will adopt the new policy once meeting options are updated. If admins turn the […]

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