Microsoft Teams can filter out the sound of you eating crisps on a conference call

Snack-munching conference callers rejoice! The great technological leap forward that you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Microsoft Teams has gained the ability to filter out the sound of you crunching crisps while you’re on a conference call. 

Earlier this week Microsoft’s Robert Aichner called journalists to demonstrate the new background-noise-eliminating tech on Teams. He rustled his hand around in a bag of crisps while talking and, lo and behold, no one heard a thing.

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A crisp rustling Aichner explained: “With the power of AI, Teams can remove that background noise and you can understand me very clearly” (via CNET).

Thanks to new AI tech that Microsoft are calling “real-time noise suppression”, Teams can now eliminate annoying sounds that might otherwise disrupt calls.

Microsoft Teams is currently seeing a huge surge in user numbers as more and more companies ask staff to work from home due to the coronavirus outbreak. Tools like Teams have become more important than ever as a result, to coordinate workplace tasks and allow work-mates to communicate.

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However, don’t start taking crisps onto conference calls just yet. This technology is still on trial, and Microsoft says it won’t be available until later this year.

Teams had an outage earlier this week but now everything’s back online and seems to be working well. The co-working platform is still under a lot of pressure as user numbers are higher than ever.

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The effect of the global coronavirus outbreak has led companies all over the world to instruct staff to work from home, in order to minimise the spread of the virus in busy workplaces. Microsoft’s Teams platform has been one of the most commonly used tools for companies looking to stay in touch while working remotely.