Microsoft is redefining digital collaboration with the latest innovations on Surface Hub 3. Since launching in December 2023 as the first all-in-one board running Teams Rooms on Windows, Hub 3 has delivered a consistent user experience across Teams-enabled meeting spaces and defined the next era of collaboration as the only collaboration board designed end-to-end by Microsoft. At Microsoft Ignite 2024, we’re excited to show how Surface Hub 3 is enhancing hybrid teamwork with advanced AI capabilities and providing intuitive in-room controls for more productive and engaging meetings.
Intuitive in-room controls
Surface Hub 3 is used for a broad range of meetings – from active brainstorming sessions to large presentations. Employees often need to quickly add the Surface Hub into a meeting or begin sharing to it without losing time.
QR Code Join, available now, makes it easier to control meetings on Surface Hub 3. Scan the QR code with your mobile device for quick access to share content via Teams Cast, or use Proximity Join to join the Surface Hub into a meeting from your own calendar. With your mobile device in companion mode, streamlined remote controls make it easy to manage common meeting functions like camera on/off, mute, screen layouts and more, all from the comfort of your seat.
Announcing center-of-table console support
To make the in-room meeting experience for employees even easier, we’re adding another option to control Surface Hub 3 in a Teams meeting – bringing support for third-party, center-of-table consoles to Teams Rooms on Windows touch board devices, starting with Surface Hub. The touchpad on the conference room table will connect to Hub 3, making it easier to join a meeting and manage controls while seated at the table – a familiar experience to most employees. And it will provide an entry point for wired content sharing from individuals’ PCs.1
This new ecosystem of Universal Consoles will be Teams Rooms Certified for use with standalone accessories, purchased separately, to deploy with touch board Windows devices. MAXHUB will be the first hardware vendor to release one of these consoles.
Console support makes it easier to deploy Surface Hub 3 in a greater variety of meeting spaces, including front-of-room positions, and drives consistency across all Teams Rooms in your buildings – so meetings in any room can be operated the same way.
We're targeting Universal Console support for Teams Rooms on Windows for general availability in Q2 of next calendar year (2025).
MAXHUB will be the first hardware vendor to release a Teams Rooms-certified universal console2
Intelligent meetings with Speaker Recognition
The integration of artificial intelligence into Teams Rooms on Surface Hub 3 is revolutionizing the hybrid meeting experience. Speaker Recognition,3 available now, delivers precise speaker attribution and intelligent insights from Copilot.
With Speaker Recognition, Surface Hub 3 identifies individual speakers in the Hub meeting space without the need for them to join from their personal devices. Their voices are attributed to them in transcripts and meeting recaps (for any users who have opted-in by setting up their voice profile). This makes Copilot and intelligent meeting recaps, summaries and downstream action assignments specific and clear, making next steps more efficient for employees.
An AI assistant, with Facilitator
The ways AI can assist with group productivity continue to expand with Facilitator.3 A new agent in Microsoft 365, Facilitator is designed to take the busywork out of meetings. It takes meeting notes in real time, tracks decisions and automatically creates follow-up tasks – all so your team can focus on the discussion.
With Facilitator, Teams Rooms like Surface Hub 3 will be able to become powerful AI assistants – leveraging Speaker Recognition and the power of AI to capture and action your discussion, with proper attribution. Even for ad-hoc discussions, Facilitator extends AI capabilities beyond scheduled meetings to support any type of collaboration, relieving you from manual follow-up tasks to focus on actioning next steps.
We're targeting Facilitator for public preview in Q1 of next calendar year (2025).
Powered by Speaker Recognition, Facilitator takes meeting notes in real time, tracks decisions and automatically creates follow-up tasks2
Flexible deployments with Coordinated Meetings
Surface Hub 3 is a great interactive front-of-room solution for many sizes of conference rooms – especially with today’s announcement of center-of-table console support. But it’s also flexible and can be deployed alongside other Teams Rooms systems – in some cases, even another Surface Hub. This is made possible by Coordinated Meetings, available now.
Coordinated Meetings enables multiple Teams Rooms systems to automatically pull each other into a meeting, coordinate their audio to avoid feedback, and let participants optimize the layout of content and video feeds across all available screens, at any time. Employees can use Surface Hub for interactive content and a traditional Teams Rooms device for video feeds of remote participants, all in the same meeting. With Coordinated Meetings, you and your workforce can adapt to the specific needs of the meeting and the space.
Streamlined deployment and management
Surface Hub 3 reduces IT complexity with a streamlined management experience through Intune and the Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal.3 With these tools, device management is seamless and consistent for managing all Teams Rooms across an organization. And with the availability of Windows Autopilot and Autologin for Teams Rooms on Windows, Surface Hub 3 can be set up and enrolled in hours. Low-touch deployment automates the device unboxing and setup, significantly simplifying the experience for IT administrators.
Showcase content with digital signage
Digital signage on Surface Hub 3 is now available. Customize the Surface Hub display when it’s not being used for meetings, transforming it into a dynamic space for displaying company news, announcements and training tips. Initially integrated with third-party providers Appspace and Xogo, digital signage on Surface Hub 3 opens new opportunities for workplace communication and engagement, scaling the value of your deployments.
Digital signage on Surface Hub 3 allows you to leverage the display for workplace communication and engagement, when not in use for meetings
Transitioning Surface Hub 2S to the Teams Rooms platform
The legacy Windows 10 Team edition operating system, running on in-market Surface Hub 2S devices, will be ending support on Oct.14, 2025. Microsoft offers customers flexible choices for seamlessly transitioning their Surface Hub 2S devices to the Teams Rooms on Windows platform. Customers can purchase a Surface Hub 3 Compute Cartridge to hardware-upgrade their device, benefitting from the full power and performance boost of becoming a Surface Hub 3. Surface Hub 2S devices can also software-migrate to run the same software platform as Surface Hub 3 devices, though without some highly requested capabilities only possible on Surface Hub 3 hardware, as detailed in the blog post.
With new AI-driven features, center-of-table console support, streamlined management tools and flexible deployment options, Surface Hub 3 with Microsoft Teams Rooms continues to be the premier collaboration and meeting solution for hybrid teams. As these newly available and soon-to-be-released features roll out, Microsoft continues to make meetings more efficient, inclusive and engaging.
References
1. Wired content ingest support on Universal Consoles may vary by individual device capabilities. Consult with your console manufacturer for more.
2. Pre-release product shown; subject to change prior to commercial release.
3. Software license required. Sold separately.
Updated Jan 30, 2025
Version 11.0FrankBuchholz
Microsoft
Joined November 04, 2016
Surface IT Pro Blog
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