Now in Public preview & Targeted release: Animated backgrounds in Teams meetings

[Jan_Steberl]

The animated backgrounds feature in Teams meetings allows you to replace an existing background with a dynamic animation for a more immersive virtual environment. It offers various options to enhance meeting experiences with creativity and personalization based on what you want. Currently, only pre-defined backgrounds from Microsoft are supported.

Flighting status

Available to everyone in Public Preview channel.

 

How to enable

Before a meeting starts, on the pre-join screen, select Effects and Avatars > Video effects and select a new animated background, identified by the small video icon in the bottom-left corner of the preview picture.

During a meeting, you can select an animated background by clicking More > Effects and Avatars > Select an background.

Note 1: If you need information about enabling the public preview itself, see “Enable the public preview for Teams” below.

Note 2: To be able to use this feature, user needs to be in Public Preview. Other meeting participants are not required to be in Public Preview.

 

Supported clients and platforms

Windows	macOS	iOS	Android	Linux	Google Chrome	Firefox	Safari	Microsoft Edge
Yes	Yes

Known issues

None

 

Known limitations

• Animated backgrounds are not available on low-end devices and require at least 8 GB RAM, CPU with 4 logical processors.
• Only pre-defined backgrounds from Microsoft are currently supported.
• Using video filters may slow down background animation, if your machine has a high workload.

Enable your Teams client for the public preview 

1. First, IT admins need to set an update policy that turns on Allow public preview. Learn how at Public preview in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs.  
2. Users then choose to join the public preview individually. Learn how at Get early access to new Teams features - Office Support (microsoft.com) 

Send us your feedback 

Got feedback on features in the public preview or other areas of Teams? Let us know straight from Teams via Help > Give feedback.  This is on the bottom left of your client.

Thank you,

Preview Team

Quality & Customer Obsession, Microsoft Teams

[#2]

Hello Jan, do you know if a specific control to disable animated backgrounds will be provided? For admins. Thank you

[#3]

Also wondering this same thing - can we disable these animated backgrounds?

[#4]

@Jan_Steberl 8GB RAM minimum!? Why? That’s a lot of for a simple feature like this. Snap Camera requires only 4GB of RAM. I’m very curious.

[#5]

@rico_roodenburg 

Teams itself has a hardware requirement of 4GB, so if the feature itself requires 4GB and does need Teams -> We have to sum it and we end with 8GB

[#6]

Does anyone know if the usage of animated backgrounds increases bandwidth in comparison to static backgrounds?