Microsoft Teams Update Promises 'More Natural and Less Choppy' Conversations

pcmag.com:

Microsoft is promising(Opens in a new window) "more natural and less choppy" conversations on Teams meetings with new AI-based speech enhancements.

Following the rollout of background noise supression in late 2020, Teams is now getting echo cancellation and reverberation suppression. The new tools pair machine learning and AI in a bid to "dramatically improve the sound quality of meetings and calls, even in the most challenging situations," says Solomiya Branets, Microsoft AI/ML Product Manager.

Here's a look at the new tools in action:

Unwanted echo is first on the chopping block. Users won't have to worry about hearing what they just said echoed back to them after it comes out of the speakers and gets picked up by the microphone of a coworker who's not on mute or wearing headphones.

Microsoft notes that it's tricky to cut down on echo because sometimes the sound coming from the speaker is louder than the sound coming from a person on that end of the line, so decreasing speaker noise can also interrupt the person trying to talk.

Echo cancellation will work alongside background noise supression for an "all-in-one model [that] runs 10% faster than 'noise-suppression-only' without quality trade-offs," says Branets.

Microsoft is also attempting to cut down on room reverberation, or the way different environments impact how your voice is picked up, so users will “sound as if they’re speaking into a headset microphone," Branets says.

Microsoft is also enabling “full duplex” sound for more natural conversations. Anyone who's spent time on a video conference of late knows that speaking up can cut someone else off, making for a clumsy hand-off between speakers. This new feature aims to fix that. 

These audio enhancements are