75% of knowledge workers are already using AI at work[1] – which means that how we work is rapidly transforming. But AI isn’t only changing how we work – it’s also reshaping where we work. And while flexible work has become increasingly popular, some aspects – like coordinating in-person connections – haven’t evolved significantly.
Case in point: nearly half (49%) of global knowledge workers report that when they do come to work, they don’t see the people that matter to them.[2] Or they come to the office only to spend all day in hybrid meetings, where outdated AV hardware and double-booked meeting rooms all make for an unsatisfying experience. It’s no wonder that 65% of global office space remains underutilized.[3] Clearly, the workplace is just as primed for AI transformation as ways of working.
A new category of technology solutions – the AI-Powered Workplace – is emerging to bridge this physical and digital divide, anchored in solutions like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Teams. Today, I’m also pleased to announce that Microsoft Places is now generally available – applying the power of AI to flexible work in new and innovative ways.
Places makes it easy to coordinate in-person gatherings or sync up spontaneously with colleagues in the office, all within the Microsoft apps you use daily. With Places, IT and facilities administrators also gain critical insight into occupancy and utilization trends – which are more valuable than ever in the era of flexible work.
Together, Microsoft solutions across the AI-Powered Workplace help organizations unlock next-level coordination, modernization and optimization.
Making coordination easier
Facilitating high-quality in-person connections in a flexible work environment can be tedious, time-consuming and thankless. We refer to this as the “coordination tax” – the extra time, effort and energy required to coordinate high-value connection opportunities.
New AI-powered features across Places, Teams and Copilot triangulate across calendars, location plans and team guidance to make it simple, fast and easy to plan in-person touchpoints with colleagues.
You’ll start by setting up your work plan – a recurring weekly schedule showing which days you plan to work from the office and when you plan to work remotely – within the new calendar, which is now unified across Teams and new Outlook. From the unified calendar experience, you can also see team guidance from leaders on when to come into the office.
This work plan sets the foundation for workplace presence – a cue within the Teams people card that indicates where you’re working for the day and makes it easy for colleagues to find you in-office.
As your schedule shifts, you’ll want to adjust your work plan. To make real-time changes, navigate to the Places card in the unified calendar – your one-stop-shop to see what’s happening on a given day and take actions like updating your work plan and quick-booking rooms.
Not sure whether it makes sense to go to the office on a specific day? Copilot can help, reasoning across your calendar, colleagues’ schedules, and team guidance to suggest a recommended in-office day.
In one click, you can update your planned work location to the office and see which in-person meetings still need a room. Through quick book, get recommendations for rooms and book spaces for your entire day with just one click.
From the Places card, you can also:
- Update your work plan and workplace presence – changing your work location to remote, in-office, or even a specific office building or floor
- See an at-a-glance view of colleagues who also plan to be in-office
- View and act upon Copilot-generated recommendations on the best days to go into the office
- Get reminders to book a desk on in-office days
- Identify which meetings on your schedule do not yet have a room booked and quick-book spaces based on your requirements
Accessible through both the unified calendar and in the Places app, Places finder makes it easy to book the right spaces – whether meeting rooms or desks – for your in-office experience.
Places finder goes beyond the standard room-booking interface to help you find the right spaces for your unique needs. Whether you’re searching for the perfect conference room to accommodate a large group with specific AV requirements or looking to book a desk for more focused work, Places finder can help.
Within Places finder, you’re able to:
- Filter available rooms by building, floor, capacity, AV configurations and more
- View detailed photos of available rooms
- Book a desk for the day
- Find and book space using maps and floor plans
Once you’ve found and booked the right space for your meeting, Copilot ensures that your booking is continually managed, even as schedules change or room availability shifts. With managed booking, Copilot automatically responds to changes in the meeting time or room availability – rebooking you into a similar room.
Places finder makes it easy to book rooms and desks ahead of time – but if you’ve forgotten to book a desk or your schedule changes at the last minute, you can also use bookable desks. To reserve a desk ad-hoc, simply plug your device into an available desk’s monitor or docking station to automatically book a seat (and, coming soon, automatically update your workplace presence so colleagues can find you at your desk).
Modernizing the workplace experience
Once you’re in the office, understanding your coworkers’ workplace locations and having access to space that facilitates inclusive meetings is imperative. Modernizing physical work environments means designing them with the right technology to accommodate flexible work.
Enabling employees to establish and update their workplace presence plays an important role in facilitating more effective real-time collaboration and spontaneous connection.
Within Teams, it’s easy to update your workplace presence either manually or automatically with bookable desks and BYOD rooms. Now, you can more easily connect in-person with colleagues by understanding who is nearby, with visibility into colleagues’ workplace presence directly within Teams chats.
Additional workplace presence enhancements – making it even easier to auto-update your work location through Wi-Fi signal and easier to chat @nearby in Teams and connect with nearby coworkers – will be available beginning in the first half of 2025. Importantly, you will always retain full control of how and when your workplace presence is updated via your Places settings.
For planned hybrid meetings, additional challenges persist – especially when you’re participating remotely. AI-enhanced Teams Rooms cameras and video feeds help to bridge the gap between participants in the room and elsewhere. When you’re joining meetings remotely, you’ll benefit from features like:
- IntelliFrame with intelligent cameras, which creates video frames for everyone in the meeting room, labeled with their name based on their recognition profile
- IntelliFrame in the cloud with existing cameras breaks a single-feed camera view of a meeting room into a gallery of individuals’ faces
- Automatic camera switching for IntelliFrame, available beginning in early 2025, will use AI to select the best camera view of an in-room user, automatically optimizing so you can see faces more clearly
- Multi-camera view selection captures every single-stream camera in a meeting room, enabling you to choose which camera feed to view
The Facilitator agent in meetings will also work with Teams Rooms in early 2025, capturing and displaying real-time notes for all meeting participants, both in the room and remote. Similarly, you’ll also be able to invite Facilitator to meetings through the Teams Rooms console, bringing the same AI-generated notes value to in-person-only meetings.
Whether you’re in-office or working remotely, you’ll also benefit from features like speaker recognition – available soon for additional meeting spaces, from a Teams Room to a BYOD room – which identifies voices and people in a room so it’s always clear who’s speaking. Speaker recognition also enables Copilot, Facilitator, and intelligent meeting recap to identify the correct speakers, ensuring that meeting notes and action items are correctly attributed.
AI, in combination with a range of software and hardware solutions, enables more inclusive, engaging and productive interactions between colleagues – ultimately delivering an optimal work experience.
Optimizing spaces effectively, with AI-powered insights
Not surprisingly, the rise in flexible work models has created novel challenges for IT and facilities administrators. Right-sizing real estate portfolio mixes, office layouts and tech stacks starts with understanding utilization – and, more importantly, what’s driving it. Places and Teams Rooms Pro Management help capture a range of utilization signals, digest these signals into easy-to-understand dashboards and reports, and – with help from Copilot – offer detailed explanations, analysis and recommendations.
Places brings together occupancy and utilization signals from a range of sources to inform decision-making. Bringing together intent-based data points from work plans, workplace presence updates, room and desk bookings alongside occupancy signals from Teams Rooms, Teams devices and partner data sources (like occupancy sensors or badge swipe data) helps create a fuller picture of hybrid work patterns and behaviors.
In late 2024, Copilot will also integrate with Places to summarize occupancy and utilization trends and make recommendations for how real estate and IT professionals can optimize their workplaces for maximum impact.
To better support IT administrators to manage and optimize performance of their Teams Rooms and device deployments across BYOD rooms and desks, Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro Management is an AI-driven service and portal that enables proactive management and custom health alerts.
By combining rich data and insights from across your Rooms and devices portfolio with AI and advanced analytics, IT administrators will benefit from:
- Built-in best practices from thousands of endpoint engagements across industries
- Automated updates, problem detection and resolution at scale
- Actionable insights and analytics through correlated utilization and trend data across your Teams Rooms and devices ecosystem with shared space insights
- Automatic peripheral association using signals from BYOD room devices, with visibility into all devices discovered via the Pro Management Portal
- Access to the new AI Assistant in the Pro Management Portal – an interactive assistant that can answer in-depth questions by combing reference materials and providing clear, concise answers – allowing admins to remain in the flow of work
Start your AI-powered workplace transformation today
The AI-powered workplace ushers in a new era of flexible work: one that’s defined by friction-free coordination, more modern workplace experiences, and data-driven optimization.
Every organization is at a different stage in their AI evolution. No matter where your organization is starting from, Places, now generally available, is a valuable addition to your AI-powered workplace strategy. You’ll leverage the power of AI to transform your approach to flexible work, making it easier to coordinate, collaborate and – ultimately – create an optimal workplace experience.
Today, Places is generally available through a Teams Premium license; some core Places features are also available with qualifying Microsoft 365 licenses. To get started with Places, activate your Teams Premium trial or start a new Teams Premium subscription today (available for a limited time with our introductory pricing).
We’re also proud to collaborate with industry leaders in our growing partner ecosystem to support you on your AI-powered workplace transformation. No matter which part of your journey you need support on – strategy, onboarding, mapping, data integration, ongoing management, integration with existing platforms or products or beyond – we have a partner that can help.
To learn more about partners who can support you with Places, visit the Places Service Partner Directory. For more information about integrating Places with other existing platforms, please refer to the Places documentation.
[1] 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, May 8, 2024.
[2] In the Changing Role of the Office, It’s All About Moments that Matter, Microsoft, 2023.
[3] 2023 Global Workplace & Occupancy Management Benchmarking Program, CBRE, 2023.
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