Microsoft is retiring Teams' Together mode, the virtual room feature it introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The company says the feature increases cognitive load, adds implementation complexity across platforms, and creates choppy video on mobile and other modest devices. Users will be steered toward Gallery mode instead.

Together mode placed all meeting attendees into a single virtual space, designed to mimic in-office collaboration when remote work dominated. With most employees back at their desks, that purpose has faded. Microsoft explained Together mode also struggled on lower-powered hardware, producing inconsistent video quality.

Gallery mode uses adaptive video tile counts to deliver smoother playback on modest devices while simplifying the meeting interface. This frees resources for foundational video improvements like super-resolution, denoising, and color accuracy. Teams has long drawn criticism for performance issues and complexity, so this move could ease some of those frustrations if Microsoft delivers on its promised upgrades.