Microsoft Teams webinars and large meetings could arrive this month

Back in March, Microsoft announced that webinar functionality was on its way to Microsoft Teams. The feature was initially planned to roll out in March 2021, but it seemingly got bumped back. While March has come and gone, webinars and large meetings could arrive within Teams as soon as this month.

According to the Microsoft 365 roadmap support for large meetings and webinars is in development and scheduled for release this month. As is always the case with the Microsoft 365 roadmap, dates are subject to change.

Once support for them rolls out, people will be able to hold interactive meetings and webinars with up to 1,000 people. These will support live reactions and moderation controls to disable chat, audio, and video for attendees.

Here’s the description from the Microsoft 365 roadmap:

Microsoft Teams: Large meeting support

Hold interactive meetings and webinars with more attendees—up to 1,000.

If the 1,000-person limit is too low for an organization, 10,000-person view-only broadcasts are also on the way. These also support host moderation controls to help prevent interruptions. While people are working from home, Microsoft has temporarily increased the limit of these larger broadcasts to 20,000 people.

Here’s the description of the larger broadcasts from the Microsoft 365 roadmap:

Microsoft Teams: 20,000 attendee view-only broadcast

When attendees exceed the meeting or webinar limit, the meeting will scale to accommodate up to 10,000 in an view-only experience. And during this time of increased remote work, users can take advantage of even larger 20,000-person broadcasts through the end of 2021.

To use these features, organizations will require a specific type of license. According to Microsoft MVP Graham Walsh, “Webinar capabilities will be included in E3/E5 and Business Standard/Business Premium plans, as well as A3/A5. Government plans will have access to these capabilities at a later date.”