The spotlight feature in Teams will soon support pinning up to 7 people

Highlighting specific speakers in Microsoft Teams meetings is about to get a lot easier.

What you need to know

• Microsoft Teams will soon let you spotlight up to seven participants within a meeting.
• The feature is already available in the public preview of Teams.
• At the moment, you can only spotlight a single person within a meeting.

Microsoft Teams gained a Spotlight feature last September that allows you to pin a specific person's video in a meeting. Soon, you'll be able to pin up to seven individuals with the same feature. The expanded Spotlight feature will make it easier to keep specific speakers or presenters on people's screens during meetings.

Microsoft MVP Vesa Nopanen, playfully known as Mr. Teams, spotted that the feature is already available in the public preview of Teams (via OnMSFT). Nopanen also shared a screenshot of the feature in action on LinkedIn.

The ability to spotlight multiple members of a meeting at once also appears on the Microsoft 365 roadmap. The feature is listed as "In development" with a listed release of May 2021, though dates on the roadmap are always subject to change.

When you feature someone with the Spotlight feature, it pins the person's video feed for everyone, not just your own view. It's a handy feature to highlight a person, such as a student who is presenting in a class or a teacher that's explaining a lesson. You have to be a presenter to set up Spotlight.

With the ability to highlight multiple people with the Spotlight feature, you'll be able to pin groups, such as a group of students sharing a presentation or multiple teachers co-teaching a lesson.

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The Spotlight feature for Microsoft Teams lets you highlight a specific person's video within a meeting. Soon, you'll be able to pin up to seven people's videos with the feature.