Microsoft Teams Phone: Recent New Features and What's Coming with Emily Kirby, Microsoft

Emily Kirby, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Teams Engineering, discusses the latest developments and future direction for Microsoft Teams Phone.

• Multi-line calling: a multi-year effort now shipped, allowing multiple phone numbers on a single account across geographies

• Consult and merge in meetings: dial out to an external party, navigate an IVR, and merge them back into the call - a big win for financial services and similar industries

• Call transfer improvements: presence visibility for transfer destinations, blind handoff, and streamlined control bar buttons for faster workflows

• Teams Phone Agent: an intelligent AI frontline to answer and route customer calls for your organisation

• Intelligent call delegation: a personal AI delegate that screens calls, communicates on your behalf, and helps you stay focused

• Automatic recording for call queues: now on the public roadmap, decoupling recordings from individual agents and centralising them in SharePoint

• Making Copilot intelligence seamless: efforts to simplify turning on transcription, recaps, and other AI features in everyday phone workflows

• Teams Phone Community: a quarterly initiative from the Microsoft calling team — join to connect with product managers and shape future topics

Thanks to AudioCodes, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.

Transcript

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Tom Arbuthnot: Welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. This week we are talking Teams Phone with Emily from Microsoft. We talk about some of the features that have been recently released and also some of what's coming and of course, where AI adds value to Teams Phone. Really interesting conversation. Nice to catch up specifically on phone.

Many thanks to Emily for jumping on the show. And also many thanks to AudioCode who are the sponsor of this show. Really appreciate all their support. On with the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Uh, really excited to have Emily back on the show. We are gonna talk all Teams Phone this episode, so if you're interested in Teams Phone and what's happened over the last six months or the engineering semester and some sneak peek at what's coming as well, this is the one for you.

Emily, I think everybody, uh, around the community probably knows your face pretty well right now. But, um, for those who don't, can you just introduce yourself and, uh, give us what you, what you look after? 

Emily Kirby George: Sure. Thanks, Tom. Hi, everybody. My name is Emily Kirby, and I am a senior product manager here on the Teams Calling team.

Uh, my purview has changed a few times. Last time I think I met with you, Tom, I wasn't yet owning core calling, but I have taken over that space. Um, but and that in- includes everything from, uh, recently shipped multi-line, which we'll talk about, um, some of the core calling intelligence, um, as well as s- some of our table stakes, like emergency calling and, and SBA and things like that, so.

Tom Arbuthnot: And like a, that's a, it's a, I feel like it's a big, big product area 'cause you've got a mix of all the AI optimization coming in, but a lot of, uh, fundamentals and, uh, and important things like emergency calling that don't, don't always get the, uh, the marketing headlines, but are absolutely critical for people to hit, hit their phone requirements, hit their compliance requirements.

Emily Kirby George: Absolutely. Yeah. It's a lot of the, um, I don't wanna call it the thankless work, but, uh, you know, in today's, uh, you know, what's, what's driving the headlines, it's definitely not that, but it's, um, absolutely the, the dial tone- Yeah ... scenarios, no pun intended. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Nice. So, um- ... let's start with a bit of a kind of a look back over the recent months and what's been worked on and, and shipped 'cause there's been quite a lot there that, um, people might not be up to speed on.

Emily Kirby George: Yeah, definitely. There has been. There's, you know, I mean, there's been a ton of announcements for a lot of the intelligence investments. Um, but in terms of some of the more core calling investments that we've made and that have shipped over the past few months, if folks haven't caught it, um, in some of the other events, um, the big one has been multi-line calling, which has been a multi-year effort.

Folks have been waiting a really long time. Um, but the ability to have multiple phone numbers assigned to your single account, um, from whatever geo you need those numbers, um, that shipped in, uh, June, I believe, early June. Um, so I'll be sharing the docs 'cause there's a, a really great documentation on how to get that set up if you don't have it.

Um, so that's one of the big ones. Uh, the other that, 

Tom Arbuthnot: um- Yeah, that, that, that was a super common ask when we were, you know, kind of whenever you're displacing a PBX, that's a pretty classic PBX feature, and it'll be people that spend half their time in London and half their time in Germany, or- 

Emily Kirby George: Mm-hmm ... 

Tom Arbuthnot: they, um, they used to work out of the New York office and now they work out the London office, but they're not ready to give their number up, and we didn't really have a great way to solve that problem until now.

Emily Kirby George: Exactly. And, um, it's just one example of some of those legacy features, um, that are still very, uh, much needed and critical that we're, we're continuing to invest in. So, um, yeah, that was a big one. Um, another one of them was the ability to consult and merge in a meeting. Um, so a scenario where you need to dial out to an external number and consult with someone and then merge them back in.

Um, and while you're in that consult call, be able to navigate an IVR. That shipped recently as well, which, um, is a big ask for financial sector and other industries, um, where you're interfacing with a client but need to bring in an SME. Um, so that was, uh, I think late May we, we released that feature. Um, and then the last one, which was, um, the most recent, which it's kind of like a, a package of a few different improvements was, um, around the call transfer experience.

So, um, on the roadmap, I think we called it call transfer improvements, um, of that, that little bundle and- A n- a 

Tom Arbuthnot: ni- a nice generic name. 

Emily Kirby George: Uh, yeah, yeah. Nice and generic. Um, so you gotta really read the fine details to, to see what it's including. But, um, one of them is, uh, being able to have the presence, um, for your transfer destination.

Um, the ability to, um, have a blind handoff so, um, the window doesn't stay up anymore. We got a lot of feedback that, "Hey, once I transfer the call, I just want to be done with it." Um, and you know, so having some of these little delighters, it's something I'm passionate about, being able to just... You know, it's not the big sexy like intelligence feature, but it makes your day easier and for people who need- Yeah.

Tom Arbuthnot: Well, uh, and, and people- ... these features Exactly. People who use phone- Yeah. Like we're kind of- Mm-hmm ... um, kind of fragmenting now into like, uh, a lot of knowledge workers are spending most of their time on meeting, but there are still millions, tens of millions of people who are like absolutely do or die on the phone and those little things add up for them where it's like I'm doing this multiple times a day, maybe multiple times an hour- Exactly

and it's, it's a big friction for them. 

Emily Kirby George: Right. The other part of it was, um, just moving the buttons in the control bar. So it used to be you'd have to double, you know, you click into the three dots and then consult and there was a little drop down there, but now they're right in the U bar, um, the control bar and it...

Yeah. If you're doing it multiple times a day like you're saying, that saves time and it- 

Tom Arbuthnot: Mm. 

Emily Kirby George: It, it's the little delighters. Um, but, uh, yeah. So those are some of the things that have come out recently that, that I'm excited we were able to get out for folks. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Nice. Nice. And, uh, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the, uh, AI features that are some are ship, some are frontier.

Um, uh, what do you wanna talk about? Do you wanna talk about those first, or do you wanna talk some of the kind of, uh, focus areas for this semester? 

Emily Kirby George: Yeah, we can talk a little bit, um, and I know, you know, I'd be remiss to not mention some of the, the, our, uh, marquee features that are coming. Um, it's even, I think, a little, uh, uh, minimizing to call it a feature when it's, uh, such a huge investment.

But, uh, Teams Phone Agent, the ability to have, um, a, an intelligent frontline for your business, um, to answer customer calls and route them. Um, the other is the intelligent call delegation, which has had a few names. Um, this is the one that we've landed on most recently, um, and likely will be the last. Um, but the ability to have a, a delegate, your own personal delegate who can communicate on your behalf, screen your calls, and help you stay focused, um, from the, from the distractions of day-to-day.

And these, um, there's folks on the team who have done great overviews, and even yourself, Tom, have had, uh, you know, overviews of what these features are. But, you know, when you're kinda zooming out and seeing what we're investing in, in Phone, it's really, uh, trying to improve your ability to, uh, manage your day-to-day while remaining connected, um, and, and where AI can, can play a role in that.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. So the, uh, Intelligent Call Delegate, which was Copilot Call Delegation last week, I feel maybe a bit longer ago. It-- That's your, that's your personal AI that answers the call on your behalf, does the call screening, can do bookings for you. I'm, I'm loving that 'cause I get a fair amount of inbound, but to be honest, everybody I want to talk to has usually vetted me first.

So actually having a screener for the one in five that I want to talk to, and it's, um, if you've had the Apple iPhone experience or the Android experience, it's very similar. It's like it's screening, giving you what's happening on the call, giving the caller the chance to say, "No, I really wanna talk to Emily," and, and it can kind of bust through and ask, "D-do you want to take this call?"

I think that's a, a huge one for, uh, kind of, uh, you know, taking only the calls you want to and not being interrupted. 

Emily Kirby George: Exactly. It, it really is. And, um, the team has been doing a, you know, just really been leaning in and, and gathering feedback for, you know, when it was in the private previews and now in Frontier, um, and has been just super hands-on, super active and agile, responding, uh, to what folks are liking, not liking, and, and making sure that once we deliver, it's, it's really hitting the top, uh, scenarios and needs that, that folks have.

Tom Arbuthnot: And, and that's an example of a feature where it's overlapping with the Copilot license. So you need your team's phone license obviously, but to activate that AI feature, you need the personal Copilot license as well. 

Emily Kirby George: Correct. Correct. So, uh, the couple of other features that are coming, um, that I'm working on and, and I'm personally excited about is one, um, for queues, which is now officially on the public roadmap, and it's automatic recording for call queues, which I think, you know, a year ago when I was, um, on the podcast with you, Tom, we, we may have talked about it, but now it's, it's official, it's, it's public, and it's coming.

So, um, this will really help with all of the additional, um, intelligence investments that are coming into queues be the source of that grounding data with all of the calls being automatically recorded and transcribed. So, um, and saved in SharePoint. So that one is, is coming. Um, and I know for 

Tom Arbuthnot: the 

Emily Kirby George: folks- 

Tom Arbuthnot: And that's using the convenience recording.

So it's, it's the-- It's automatic convenience recording, but based on the queue, not on the person. So it- Exactly ... just doesn't matter which combination of agents it is, it will follow the queue. 

Emily Kirby George: Correct. Yeah. The, the whole idea was to decouple the recording from the, the human agent or representative so that we're not depending on the user, um, either their manual action to start it or their OneDrive and having to track down all those recordings being kind of orphaned all over, um, you know, in storage.

So it, it will centralize all of the recordings in, in SharePoint and also, um, happen without any, uh, human agent intervention. And is that 

Tom Arbuthnot: tied to the Queues app and Teams Premium or is that in core with a regular queue? 

Emily Kirby George: So it is in a call with a regular queue, um, kind of just based on how licensing works.

Um, but really to have the full-fledged, being able to get the recap, um, which is coming as well, and the ability to, um, you know, view and, and review those recordings right in the Queues app is that's the really where all of the- Yeah. We- -the goodness will come from- We 

Tom Arbuthnot: had Sean- -

Emily Kirby George: is going to Queues 

Tom Arbuthnot: app ... Sean and Scott and Wendy on Fireside Chat, and we talked a lot of, um, crystal balling and no commitments about the future.

But you can see how this lays a foundation for clever, intelligent stuff around the Call Queues app and insights and visibility, and stuff you can do yourself as a customer. Once you've got those calls in SharePoint, that's opening the data up for you to do clever things with it if you want to as well.

Emily Kirby George: Exactly. Yeah. It's no, um, secret what we need those transcripts for and what we can do with them. So, um, yes, definitely laying the foundation with this one. Nice. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Nice. I think that's a really exciting one. There's a lot, there's a lot of investment going in there that's, um, really, really exciting to unlock some of the kind of power in that Queues app experience and, uh, yeah, we'll see more, more there, I think, over the, the coming, uh, term.

Emily Kirby George: Mm-hmm. For sure. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Cool. So those are some things that are, uh, kind of coming in imminent. Anything else on the kind of, uh, futures or investment areas that we want to talk about? I know you wanted to talk about the E nine one one, actually, that we, um, that you've done some work on as well. 

Emily Kirby George: Yeah. We've done, um, quite a bit of investment there, and, uh, we had a great session.

Um, it actually might be worthwhile, um, doing a quick plug and sharing, um, with Jamie Stark, um, on our services side. Um, we had our own little session that is on YouTube that, uh, we interviewed him and, and did, um, really a deep dive into E nine one one. Um- Oh, 

Tom Arbuthnot: nice. Yeah, we'll cross-link that definitely. 

Emily Kirby George: Yeah.

Yeah. Um, 'cause, yeah, he's a, a great resource and, um, uh, just a wealth of knowledge for the space. Some other things, um, obviously, you know, Copilot in general. And so when we think about what the table stakes experiences are, um, like using Copilot in a call, um, intelligent recap post-call, um, you know, I kind of bucket it into those commoditized experiences as well as more of the innovative, um, like intelligent call delegation and Teams Phone Agent.

But, um, what I'm personally looking at is more of how do we make it easier to use the commoditized intelligence. So, um, you know- Not having to turn Copilot on every call or making it easier to go find those recaps after. So those are the things that I'm looking at. Um, again, it's not really creating anything, uh, new or, or novel.

It's just really making it easier, more seamless to, to weave in what we have into your, uh, daily workflow. So those are 

Tom Arbuthnot: some of the things we're looking to see coming. I, I think it is quite... I mean, you say it's not novel. It is, like, it's not novel for us who live in Teams, who do Teams meetings, who are very used to now intelligent recap and things like that.

But, like, actually, again, in the phone world, it tends to trail a little bit. So to people who are hardcore phone users, suddenly being able to have transcriptions and summaries, and we've got the API cover now to pull those transcriptions out and do things with them- Mm-hmm ... um, you can do some really clever stuff, again, just with your Teams Phone and/or Copilot license and then tie that up to different line of business scenarios.

So I think there's lots of value there. But yeah, I would put a heavy vote for, uh, having a magic button to default transcribe on would be huge. 

Emily Kirby George: Yes. Yes. And, um, yeah, I think it is good to be, uh, reminded 'cause I'm living and breathing this every day, so that's why I appreciate, uh, talking to you and other folks who are in the world.

Um, yeah, I mean, it, it, it is at- We, we, we kinda live, 

Tom Arbuthnot: we kinda live in the future 

Emily Kirby George: here. Yeah, I know, I know. Exactly. Um, yeah, I mean, it is a very, it's an old technology and so weaving AI into it is, um, very much, you know, an art 'cause it's something that those habits and patterns are, are deeply forged, so. 

Tom Arbuthnot: No, it's exciting.

And so I, I guess that's a little sneak peek at what's... where the kind of, uh, investment areas are gonna be. And obviously a lot of engineering cycles just go into the, the, the fundamentals of running a, a global multi tens of thou- uh, tens of millions of users phone service that is not, you know, not, not headline features, but there's a lot of engineering work there just to keep all that stuff ticking along.

Emily Kirby George: Absolutely. Yeah. The, you know, I'd say at least half of our, um, investment is still going into just the keeping the lights on and maintaining that. 'Cause AI, it doesn't matter if we have all the AI in the world if you can't make a phone call, if that call won't connect. So- Yeah ... uh, definitely a lot going on behind the scenes.

Tom Arbuthnot: Nice. And you're doing some work to kind of, um, uh, keep going with the community calls and some of those bits and pieces. Did you wanna plug any of that or is that still a TBC? 

Emily Kirby George: Yeah. Um, a bit. There's a plug I'll do for our community, um, Teams Phone Community is, uh, what we call it, and, um, I'll share the link so that, um, we can plug that.

And it's kind of a grassroots, uh, initiative that, that we've taken on from the calling team, and it's just a chance to come connect with, uh, the product managers that are on our team. We will have special guests, whether it's someone in the field or from the services team coming to talk about, um, any topic about Teams Phone.

And, uh, we're running it quarterly now. All of the existing sessions are up on YouTube. Um, but would love for any of the folks listening who are interested in Phone, um, please come join. We'd love to have you. Um, and we also do asks for, uh, topics. We do a call for topics, so, um, we want to have sessions on the things that folks are most interested in, so.

Tom Arbuthnot: Nice. We'll be sure to link that in the, uh, in the, the show notes as well. So yeah, if you're interested in Phone, that's a great opportunity to talk to the product team directly and give your feedback and hear a bit of what's coming as well. 

Emily Kirby George: Thanks, Tom. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Emily, thanks for catching us up. Thanks for giving us a little bit of a preview of, of what's coming down the pipe and, uh, yeah, we'll be sure to share those links.

And, uh, you mentioned, uh, Jamie. Since, since you brought his name up, I'll, uh, just say a, a public thanks for everything he's done in the, in the community and while he's been at Microsoft. I know he's, uh, uh, leaving Microsoft now. I think he's, he's said this all publicly already, but I just wanna give a, a public shout-out for all the stuff he's, uh, shared and done for the community over the years.

Emily Kirby George: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, he's, uh, one of the, one of the good ones for sure. So, um, yeah, it... his, his legacy is, has definitely made an impact. Um, yeah- Definitely ... as always, it's, it's been a pleasure, Tom. Thank you so much for having me.