Table of Contents
Summary
- Introduction of a private chat feature for organizers, co-organizers, and presenters in Teams meetings and webinars.
- Unified backroom chat policy for town halls, defaulting to ON regardless of prior settings or licenses.
- Existing town halls will adopt the new backroom chat policy upon updating meeting options.
- Admins can disable the backroom chat policy, affecting access for previously scheduled town halls.
- Review and update Teams meeting policies and internal documentation to reflect these changes.
Admin Impact: Medium
User Impact: Medium
Release Start: 15 Feb 2026
Release End: 28 Feb 2026
Services: Teams
Category: Plan for change
Tags: New Feature, User Adoption, Admin Action
History
11/19/2025 Item Added to Message Center
Microsoft Message
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:
-
- 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 backroom chat policy OFF, previously enabled town halls will lose access after update.
- Non-TPre town halls (those without a Teams Premium license) will have backroom chat ON by default after rollout and update.
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
- Review your Teams meeting policies and decide whether to enable private chat for organizers and presenters.
- Communicate this change to helpdesk staff and event organizers.
- Update internal documentation to reflect the new backroom chat behavior.
- If you want to disable backroom chat, adjust the policy in the Teams admin center.
Compliance considerations
No compliance considerations identified, review as appropriate for your organization.