You can now join a Microsoft Teams call from your car… but you probably shouldn’t

One of the last safe places for avoiding video calls could soon fall, no thanks to a new update for Microsoft Teams.

The video conferencing service is working on an update that will allow users to join a Teams call directly from their vehicle while driving using Apple’s CarPlay platform.

Apple has recently updated CarPlay to include a new calendar view, which will now allow users to join a Microsoft Teams call using their iPhone while driving.

Microsoft Teams CarPlay

The official entry in the Microsoft 365 roadmap for the update doesn’t provide any extra detail on exactly how the feature will work, simply noting that users can choose to join a Teams meeting using the new CarPlay calendar view.

Obviously, due care and attention should be paid to the road whilst driving, so hopefully the calls taking place can be audio-only as well, meaning users can keep their eyes on the road.

The feature is still marked as in development for the time being, with a scheduled general availability date of March 2023, so users won’t have too long to wait.

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Microsoft Teams users have been able to dial into calls using Apple CarPlay since September 2021, as well the ability to call and message Teams contacts from most modern vehicles – although meeting video feeds do not appear on the dashboard.

The platform is also available on Android Auto, with Google’s car-focused software allowing Microsoft Teams users to make calls, join meetings or message contacts.

The news is the latest in a series of recent upgrades for Microsoft Teams as the company looks to continue improving the platform.

This includes a tweak that uses AI to detect the difference between sound from a speaker and the user’s voice, fixing a common issue when a microphone is too close to a speaker, causing sound to loop between input and output devices and create an echo.

For those making calls in large rooms, where speaking can often reverberate and echo around somewhat, Teams now uses a machine learning model to convert captured audio signal, making it now sound as if users are speaking into a close-range microphone.

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