This week, the Mircosoft Teams smartphone application is adding new XR capabilities through AR instructional annotations that team members and managers can apply to callers’ feeds to provide insight and assistance with instructions.
The new Teams Dynamics 365 Remote Assist feature was initially available via Hololens 2. This update adds functionality to the platform’s mobile application.
Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows frontline workers to connect with experts, share their opinions, and gain insight into repair and maintenance tasks by placing spatial annotations on users’ video feeds .
Additionally, the company says its new AR offering will free up IT admins from having to manage other frontline XR applications, enable remote assistance capabilities across a distributed frontline workforce, and improve workflows. It emphasizes streamlining into one service.
Microsoft highlights how businesses can benefit from Team’s enterprise-ready and proven end-to-end encryption, data loss prevention, and compliance certifications when using AR services.
Microsoft plans for general availability across devices in 2024. The company is currently distributing public previews of new Teams features for iOS, with a further public preview model for Android users coming later this summer.
Users who already have Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Guides, and Dynamics 365 Remote Assist licenses will automatically have access to new Teams remote assistance features through the mobile application at no additional cost.
Learn more about Teams Dynamics 365 Remote Assist
Microsoft is no stranger to assistive reality tools. As previously mentioned, Teams Dynamics 365 Remote Assist is already available to HoloLens 2 users. At last year’s Ignite 2023 event, Microsoft announced core updates to the Dynamics 365 platform.
Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 software employs cutting-edge technologies such as AI, MR, and IoT to bring new capabilities to users, enabling businesses to leverage Microsoft Teams and Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 MR headset in AR workflows. benefits companies.
Additionally, at the event, Microsoft introduced new avatars to the popular Teams application and announced that avatars will be generally available in January 2024.
To power the Avatar system, Microsoft introduced Mesh, a suite of Unity features integrated with no-code tools that enable enterprise customers to create bespoke immersive spaces. Immersive experiences such as employee events, training, tours, and product showcases can be customized to fit your business needs.
XR project managers can choose from a collection of pre-built immersive environments available via the Mesh platform, customize spaces using no-code/Unity tools, and create templates that can be accessed and used by the entire organization. Masu.
In addition, companies like Taqtile are increasing support for Microsoft services to improve the usability of immersive frontline solutions that provide solutions similar to Teams Dynamics 365 Remote Assist.
Taqtile’s Manifest, an AR education platform, now leverages Azure Private 5G Core with support from Azure, allowing Taqtile employees to more effectively use Manifest on HoloLens 2 headsets. Additionally, Azure support provides more robust connectivity capabilities suitable for industrial environments and use cases, allowing employees to stay better connected at work.
Learn more about Microsoft’s XR ambitions
Microsoft is well-known for its support of XR workplace solutions, and its HoloLens device was an early pillar of the immersive solutions space, with the device seen in military, medical, and industrial applications.
Microsoft recently released information regarding its fiscal year 2024 second quarter earnings release. This call hit all the expected notes, including genAI. But interestingly, despite increasing efforts to develop XR solutions since mid-2023, Microsft has not mentioned his MR/spatial applications, HoloLens 2, or industrial metaverse roadmap. not.
Microsoft is primarily focused on delivering a broader portfolio of digital solutions that are far more expansive than just immersive solutions, but the company’s XR investments have declined in favor of investments in genAI in particular. It is interesting that XR was not included in this conference, given what it appears to have been.
Despite the lack of public attention for immersive solutions, Microsoft is still working to improve its software and approach. Microsoft has launched its immersive Office 365 software solution and Co-Pilot for Apple’s XR Marketplace.
With the integration of Co-Pilot functionality, the first wave of Vision Pro adopters can now run Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Loop on their spatial computing devices. Users can download these services from the Vision Pro application store. This will give headset operators access to similar workplace productivity services such as Zoom. Microsoft has worked closely with Apple for years to integrate 365 services into Apple’s ecosystem.
Microsoft is helping lead the GenAI and XR race. With the debut of Vision Pro software, the company now allows device operators to interact with their AI virtual assistants via text and voice commands without leaving the spatial computing environment. Additionally, CoPilot for Vision Pro helps users draft, edit, summarize and create his 365 content. For example, CoPilot for Vision Pro allows a user to create his PowerPoint presentations based on simple prompts or natural language commands.
Mesh for Teams’ immersive VR conferencing platform has been available to enterprises since the beginning of this year. Most recently, Microsoft debuted the service with the Meta Quest headset, allowing device users to access Microsoft’s dynamic virtual remote conferencing solution through their desktop or MR headset. Immersive mesh meeting spaces facilitate corporate use cases such as employee onboarding, town halls, brainstorming sessions, team social, and networking events.
After a long period of development, the immersive mesh platform is now available on PC and Meta Quest VR devices, making the service available to corporate end users such as Takeda, Accenture, BP, and Mercy Ships.
Viewers may also see Microsoft take a unique approach to XR as a software provider, perhaps with a focus on providing immersive versions of trusted services for devices from a variety of vendors. I don’t know. Just as other companies are aiming at the hardware market.
