Licensing updates extend access to advanced capabilities in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Places

Microsoft

Jan 22, 2026

At Microsoft, we empower organizations to achieve more through intelligent communication, inclusive collaboration, and connected workplace experiences. Our customers are looking for scaled, widespread access to powerful tools that enable workforces to interact and communicate with more intelligence and precision. To facilitate that, we’re announcing Teams licensing updates that make it easier for customers to unlock their full communication and collaboration potential.

These licensing changes simplify access to capabilities spanning across Microsoft Places and Teams town halls and webinars, so you can deliver experiences that enhance virtual and in-person collaboration. Read on to learn about the changes ahead and new ways to empower your organization.

Access enhanced workplace coordination capabilities

Places enables an AI-powered workplace experience by connecting employees to colleagues, spaces, and services in the office. We are expanding access to end-user functionality in Places by making it available in all licenses that include access to the calendar in Outlook and Teams (including Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium; Outlook 365 E1, E3, and E5; Exchange Online; various Teams licenses; additional Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses). Functionality included in this change:

Places Finder: Make more informed decisions about bookings with enriched context like images, floorplans, custom attributes, and available technology in the spaces around you. This change enables organizations to upgrade at scale from Room Finder to the full Places Finder experience by onboarding spaces to the Places Directory.

Places Explorer: Enable map-based space reservations and explore details about all workplaces, including the people, spaces, and experiences in each location. Access to Places Explorer is through the Places app inside Microsoft Outlook and Teams.

These changes will go into effect on April 1, 2026 for customers with users on any license that includes access to the calendar in Outlook and Teams (including Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium; Outlook 365 E1, E3, and E5; Exchange Online; various Teams licenses; additional Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses).

Manage shared spaces more efficiently

Across our AI-powered workplace solutions, we’re continually looking for ways to streamline how organizations manage their inventory of shared desks, spaces, and assets. The newly renamed Teams Shared Space license (formerly Teams Shared Devices license) will be the way that organizations manage this inventory of assets, adding the ability to manage up to four desks with a single license (in addition to the previous ability to manage either a common area phone, a Teams panel, shared space like a room, or a hotdesking device included in the Teams Shared Device license). IT admins will be able to assign licenses to bookable shared spaces individually and control which workspaces are available for employees to use with this new functionality.

This license will provide space management capabilities, including:

Desk booking: Employees can reserve desks in advance before arriving at a location.
Space management: Admins can manage spaces in their Places Directory including the modes, properties, booking and auto-release policies for rooms and licensed shared spaces (desks).
Space Analytics: Inventory and utilization reports are available for licensed shared spaces (desks).
Integration of 3rd-party APIs: Places can integrate with 3rd-party sources of spatial data, floorplans, check-in signals streamlining the onboarding and management of the spaces in the Places Directory.

This license will be available on April 1, 2026. For customers with legacy Teams Shared Device licenses, admins will not be required to take any action to transition to this license (but will have to assign additional spaces like desks with an additional no-cost license to take advantage of the new increased allotment of four spaces per license).

Communicate and connect at scale

Managing communication to thousands or tens of thousands of attendees can be a daunting process for anyone. Built directly on the Teams platform, Teams town hall and webinar enable events at scale with improved capabilities, reliability, and capacity.

To empower more organizations to plan and execute high-quality events, we are bringing all town hall and webinar features that were previously only available with a Teams Premium license to Teams Enterprise, including:

Streaming chat: Chat for town hall events reduces any message sending lag, enabling smoother communication between attendees and organizers.
Reactions interactivity: Enjoy the same reactions from Teams meetings in town hall and webinar, allowing the audience to express themselves and react to presented content.
Real-time event insights: Hosts of town hall and webinar instances can get feedback on the performance and reliability of their broadcasts, helping to ensure a smoother experience for attendees.
Meeting theme and email customization: Use organizational branding to customize the event-related artifacts that are delivered to attendees.
Enterprise Content Delivery Network (eCDN): eCDN helps to manage the bandwidth load of streaming events to large audiences, providing stability and reliability.
Immersive events in Teams: Host immersive experiences in custom 3D environments where attendees join as avatars to interact and collaborate.

All users with a Teams Enterprise license will soon be able to host events for up to 3,000 attendees with all Teams town hall and webinar features. We will also enable a higher-capacity, view-only streaming experience for town halls up to 10,000 users. To fully enable events at scale, customers will be able to purchase attendee pack licenses that increase the cap on the total number of attendees up to 100,000 with the same suite of robust features. Attendee pack licenses will come in a range of sizes to provide added flexibility, and will be available to assign through the Teams Admin Center (TAC) after transacting.

Summary of licensing changes

These changes reflect our commitment to helping organizations confidently embrace the future of work with greater impact across their communication and collaboration. The full slate of changes will go into effect on April 1, 2026:

End-user workplace coordination features from Microsoft Places available for licenses that include access to the calendar in Outlook and Teams (including Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Basic, Business Standard, and Business Premium; Outlook 365 E1, E3, and E5; Exchange Online; various Teams licenses; additional Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses)
Introduction of the renamed Teams Shared Space license with additional capabilities for space management and analytics for admins
Advanced Teams town hall and webinar features available for all Teams Enterprise users for instances up to 3,000 attendees (10,000 attendee view-only experience)
Introduction of attendee pack add-on licenses for town hall events starting from 5,000 up to 100,000 attendees

Independent of these changes, we are committed to continuing to provide a robust set of experiences for organizations that have invested in Teams Premium. Teams Premium will still be the only way for customers to experience advanced communication features in Teams meetings, meeting protection, Advanced Collaboration Tools for admins, Intelligent recap, Queues app for Teams Phone, and enhanced capabilities for Bookings and virtual appointments. For a full list of current Teams Premium features, please click here.

More information about these new licensing changes, including impacts for existing Teams Premium customers using these products and features, are available below.