Microsoft has announced some big changes to the Teams licensing model, aimed at making more advanced features available to everyone along with updates to their Places products set which is now firmly more rooted as a key part of Teams.
These changes reflect Microsoft’s commitment to democratising advanced collaboration tools and to keep adding value to their core products without the need for premium licenses to unlock core value.
These updates, effective 1 April 2026, will impact organisations of all sizes. Here is what is changing.
1.Microsoft Places Now Broadly Available
Yes, I thought they had forgotten about it as well! But not..
Microsoft Places which was originally only part of Teams Premium will now be available to anyone with access to Microsoft Teams and Office users making it a core subcomponent of Microsoft 365 for anyone with the following license.
- Microsoft 365 E3 / E5
- Microsoft 365 Business Basic / Standard / Premium
- Office 365 E1 / E3 / E5
- Exchange Online
What is Microsoft Places?
Microsoft Places is a set of apps and services designed to provide rich meeting and space management to enhance and enable the hybrid meeting experience. It includes
- Places Finder: Provides rich meeting location details, including images and floorplans.
- Places Explorer: Adds map-based reservations, people, and space visibility.
The key value of places (and why it needed to just be part of Teams) include the ability to auto rebook rooms if more people are attending in person that the room can fill, notify you if you are joining a meeting remotely when you and others are in the same building and tools to help you navigate and find places, people and spaces more effectively in the workplace.
2. Teams Shared Devices becomes Teams Shared Spaces
This change of name from the Teams Shared Devices license to Teams Shared Space also provides IT with the following management capabilities under the common name. It includes.
- Bookable desks
- Teams panels
- Shared spaces
There also new capabilities which include:
- Space management
- Desk booking
- Space analytics
- And more integration with third-party APIs including Building Management systems.
The ability for Places to integrate with (more) 3rd-party sources of spatial data, floorplans, check-in signals should make adoption better by streamlining the onboarding and management of the spaces in the Places Directory.
3. Town Halls and Webinars for Enterprise
Previously exclusive to Teams Premium Users only, Town Halls and Webinars style meetings will now be available to all Teams Enterprise customers. With this everyone gets default meeting capacity or up to 3,000 attendees and up to 10,000 for stream only events.
Microsoft have also introduced “attendee packs”
2hich can be purchased to increase limits up to 100,000 attendees
This is a major enhancement for organisations hosting large-scale events without needing Teams Premium Licenses.
Read more here.