Microsoft Teams will soon hide evidence of your biggest video call mistakes

Mike Moore
·2 min read
Microsoft Teams on an iPhone
Microsoft Teams on an iPhone

Being overloaded with work calls can be frustrating, but if you've ever cracked and uttered some less-than-professional language on a Microsoft Teams call, a new update could be set to save your bacon.

The video conferencing service has announced it is adding profanity filters to block out any untoward language uttered during a meeting.

The addition should hide extreme language not only from live captions in your meeting, but also from the overall transcription itself, hopefully leaving you free of any embarassment.

But does it work?

First unveiled in February 2023, the new setting, which can be toggled on or off depending on user preference (or sensitivity) will apply both to live captions and live transcription.

If left off, Microsoft says users run the risk of, "view(ing) live captions and live transcription without any filtering or masking, displaying every word as-is."

The toggle can be found in the captions and transcription tab in their user settings, and whether the control is on or off will be directly down to the user themselves - although it will be on by default. The tool is out now on both Windows desktop and web versions of Microsoft Teams.

Our TechRadar Pro testing of the feature was spotty to say the least, meaning we can't actually work out how censored/filtered words will appear - but we would imagine they will be starred or blanked out completely.

It's worth noting as well that the feature does not extend to people actually hearing the bad language, so it's always best to watch your frustrations just in case.

Caption-ready

The update is the latest improvement to Microsoft Teams as the company looks to ensure its platform remains user-friendly.

The company opened up its live captions feature to all users in March 2022, having previously kept them for paying customers only.

The feature was then taken to a whole new level with the September 2022 launch of live translated captions. Available in a range of languages, Microsoft Teams users are able to select live captions in the language of their choice, helping them gain better understanding with other participants.

It also recently launched so-called "intelligent translation" for Microsoft Teams Mobile users, meaning they'll be able to quickly translate messages in a foreign language, making sure there's never any delay or errors.